[{"id":"5bdcc0b2-34fb-4ef2-850d-a5493489f5c6","user_id":"6a1df8f5-4508-4d8f-b002-c3782e7d3231","question":"why do good designers operate at the top and bottom?","text":"Good designers operate at both the top and the bottom of a design problem because it allows them to add value at multiple levels. At the top, they understand and articulate the big picture or the rationale behind a design. This includes understanding the purpose of their work, who it's for, and what factors are involved in making it successful. \n\nAt the bottom, they focus on the nuances and details of the design. This involves being meticulous about the choices they're making, why they're making them, and what the impact of those choices is. \n\nWhen the top and bottom are thought through, the middle naturally works itself out. If you only focus on the bottom, you might miss the big picture. If you only focus on the top, you might overlook important details. And if you only focus on the middle, you might not fully understand what's driving your design or how to optimize it. \n\nOperating at both the top and the bottom allows designers to have a comprehensive understanding of the design problem and to create more effective and successful designs.\n\n```\n47611c40-32ae-4e53-b6da-90e7e94c64a0\n```","message":{"id": "5bdcc0b2-34fb-4ef2-850d-a5493489f5c6", "type": 0, "title": "why do good designers operate at the top and bottom?", "answer": "Good designers operate at both the top and the bottom of a design problem because it allows them to add value at multiple levels. At the top, they understand and articulate the big picture or the rationale behind a design. This includes understanding the purpose of their work, who it‘s for, and what factors are involved in making it successful. \n\nAt the bottom, they focus on the nuances and details of the design. This involves being meticulous about the choices they’re making, why they‘re making them, and what the impact of those choices is. \n\nWhen the top and bottom are thought through, the middle naturally works itself out. If you only focus on the bottom, you might miss the big picture. If you only focus on the top, you might overlook important details. And if you only focus on the middle, you might not fully understand what’s driving your design or how to optimize it. \n\nOperating at both the top and the bottom allows designers to have a comprehensive understanding of the design problem and to create more effective and successful designs.", "resources": [{"id": "2a2dd318-ed4a-4950-8e5f-8d6252a030c8", "url": "https://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?878=", "type": 1, "title": "The Top and Bottom", "summary": "Designers who can understand and speak to the rationale behind a design and focus on the nuances of the design are valuable. A skilled designer adds value at both the top and bottom of a design problem. Being able to operate at both the top and the bottom is design. Design principles are filters for making decisions, and design considerations are the factors you learn about and weigh when considering options.", "entities": ["Design Principles", "Design Considerations", "Product Design", "Design Strategy", "Design Decisions"], "metadata": {"tags": ["UI15: Developing Successful Personas", "Event: ZURBsoapbox", "A Difference of Design", "models", "process", "strategy"], "author": "Luke Wroblewski", "longDate": "August 2009", "shortDate": "Aug 2009"}, "coverImage": "https://static.lukew.com/lukew_og_img1.png", "renderHtml": "

Whenever I interview designers, I look for two things: an ability to understand and speak to the rationale behind a design (the big picture) and a focus on the nuances of the design (the details). A skilled designer adds value at both the top (the big picture) and the bottom (the details) of a design problem. When the top and bottom are thought through, the middle naturally works itself out.

\n\n

Only focus on the bottom and you \"can't see the forest for the trees\". Only focus on the top and your \"head's in the sky\". Only focus on the middle and you don't know what's driving your design (the big picture) nor how to optimize it (the details).

\n\n

Being able to operate at both the top and the bottom -that's design. Some interesting \"examples\":

\n\n

When working through a product design, many details are uncovered that often adjust or enhance product strategy.
ZURB's process diagram illustrates how understanding goals (the top) and how to implement them (the bottom) allows you to turn opportunities into tangible products.
In the documentary Objectified, Dan Formosa states: \"What we need to do to design is to look at the extremes. The middle will take care of itself.\"
In my Parti & the Design Sandwich talk, I describe a system for making informed design decisions that consists of design principles at the top and design considerations at the bottom. Design principles are filters for making decisions. Design considerations are the factors you learn about and weigh when considering options.

", "textOnlyHtml": "Whenever I interview designers, I look for two things: an ability to understand\nand speak to the rationale behind a design (the big picture) and a focus on the\nnuances of the design (the details). A skilled designer adds value at both the\ntop (the big picture) and the bottom (the details) of a design problem. When the\ntop and bottom are thought through, the middle naturally works itself out.\n\nOnly focus on the bottom and you \"can't see the forest for the trees\". Only\nfocus on the top and your \"head's in the sky\". Only focus on the middle and you\ndon't know what's driving your design (the big picture) nor how to optimize it\n(the details).\n\nBeing able to operate at both the top and the bottom -that's design. Some\ninteresting \"examples\":\n\n * When working through a product design, many details are uncovered that often\n adjust or enhance product strategy.\n * ZURB's process diagram illustrates how understanding goals (the top) and how\n to implement them (the bottom) allows you to turn opportunities into tangible\n products.\n * In the documentary Objectified, Dan Formosa states: \"What we need to do to\n design is to look at the extremes. The middle will take care of itself.\"\n * In my Parti & the Design Sandwich talk, I describe a system for making\n informed design decisions that consists of design principles at the top and\n design considerations at the bottom. Design principles are filters for making\n decisions. Design considerations are the factors you learn about and weigh\n when considering options."}, {"id": "82a1c3ed-033a-409a-b823-59136c0616b1", "url": "https://static.lukew.com/audio/BigWebShowMobileFirst.mp3", "date": 1275609600000, "type": 3, "title": "Mobile First", "topics": ["mobile web design", "desktop web growth", "iPhone growth", "mobile data traffic", "Facebook Lite"], "endTime": 2509.42, "nameMap": {"Person 1": "Luke Wroblewski", "Person 2": "Jeffrey Zeldman", "Person 3": "Dan Benjamin", "Person 4": "Speaker 1"}, "summary": "The Big Web Show Episode 6 features Luke Wroblewski, a digital product design leader and author of Web Form Design, discussing the importance of designing for mobile first, rather than as an afterthought. The conversation revolves around the impact of mobile devices, particularly the iPhone and iPad, on web design, and the potential for web operating systems on various devices. The group also considers the changes in design mentality required for designing for smaller screens and touch interfaces. The importance of website performance and bandwidth is discussed, with examples given of how major sites like Facebook are constantly vigilant about improving speed and reducing file sizes. The speakers discuss the challenges of designing for websites with multiple stakeholders and the need to simplify and prioritize content. They highlight the benefits of designing for mobile, which forces designers to prioritize due to limited space. The conversation discusses the importance of designing for mobile first and then applying those learnings to desktop design. The focus on mobile devices has led to a simplification of the user experience and a greater acceptance of different experiences on different devices. The discussion revolves around how thinking about mobile first helps with challenges in web design. The group discusses the importance of designing for the user's experience and not wasting time on features that are not being used. They also discuss the benefits of simplifying web content for better readability and engagement. The conversation discusses the importance of optimizing content for mobile devices and creating a better user experience. Luke Reblewski offers advice on creating new content for mobile devices.", "filename": "BigWebShowMobileFirst.mp3", "startTime": 2369.9, "coverImage": "https://qrmsyiqritqdkspkjoqy.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/lukew-media/batch-1-audio-image/podcast_bigwebshow.jpg", "transcript": [{"end": 10.788837209302326, "text": "This is Episode 6 of The Big Web Show, a live talk show about the web and the future of web publishing. ", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 14.24, "text": "I'm Dan Benjamin, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Jeffrey Zeldman.", "start": 10.788837209302326, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 15.24, "text": "Hey, Jeffrey.", "start": 14.24, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 15.882857142857143, "text": "Hey, Dan. ", "start": 15.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 17.04, "text": "How are you doing?", "start": 15.882857142857143, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 21.728372093023257, "text": "The Big Web Show is sponsored by MailChimp, powerful email marketing. ", "start": 17.04, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 36.85767441860465, "text": "MailChimp serves more than 300,000 users and 20 million emails daily, and their template language makes it dead simple to code HTML emails that give your clients the ability to adjust colors, fonts, and more without breaking layout or having to mess with your code. ", "start": 21.728372093023257, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 40, "text": "Sign up free and see why everyone's switching to MailChimp.com.", "start": 36.85767441860465, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 44.120000000000005, "text": "Jeffrey, perhaps you could introduce our guest.", "start": 40, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 45.93000000000001, "text": "I would be delighted. ", "start": 44.120000000000005, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 54.5625, "text": "Our guest today is Luke Wroblewski, a guy who makes decisions that affect hundreds, that affect hundreds of millions of people. ", "start": 45.93000000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 59.07076923076923, "text": "He is an internationally recognized digital product design leader. ", "start": 54.5625, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 65.74468085106382, "text": "He's the author of Web Form Design, which sounds boring, but is anything but. ", "start": 59.07076923076923, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 71.76340425531914, "text": "I've read the book many times, and I've seen Luke talk about forms. ", "start": 65.74468085106382, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 77.31826086956521, "text": "If you're a web designer, watching Luke talk about forms is better than Adam Sandler. ", "start": 71.76340425531914, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 81.75999999999999, "text": "It's just really funny and human and warm and enlightening. ", "start": 77.31826086956521, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 83.83999999999999, "text": "He's just an amazing guy. ", "start": 81.75999999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 98, "text": "About his book, Communication Arts, which usually doesn't dirty its hands by talking about web stuff, they called his book, that rare book capable of transforming the way an entire field does its business.", "start": 83.83999999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 102.88782608695652, "text": "I like that phrase, does its business, but I think they meant it in a... ", "start": 98, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 105.06322580645161, "text": "Anyway, differently than I... ", "start": 102.88782608695652, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 105.7858064516129, "text": "Anyway. ", "start": 105.06322580645161, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 108.76645161290323, "text": "He was the design lead at Yahoo. ", "start": 105.7858064516129, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 113.25767441860465, "text": "He was the actually chief design architect at Yahoo. ", "start": 108.76645161290323, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 116.32744186046511, "text": "I can't even imagine doing a job like that. ", "start": 113.25767441860465, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 118.00186046511628, "text": "Chief design architect. ", "start": 116.32744186046511, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 125.14636363636365, "text": "He could do things like send a nav on the right-hand side to a million people. ", "start": 118.00186046511628, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 136.2855172413793, "text": "I mean, I'm sorry, to 100 million people, send one on the left side to another 100 million people, and then see how it did and draw inferences about how people use web pages and how design works on the web. ", "start": 125.14636363636365, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 142.32, "text": "Before that, he was the lead user interface design of eBay's platform team.", "start": 136.2855172413793, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 144.07238095238094, "text": "I guess he was always a lead something. ", "start": 142.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 145.73714285714286, "text": "I don't think he ever started as a... ", "start": 144.07238095238094, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 147.02, "text": "He was never a punk. ", "start": 145.73714285714286, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 153.54921348314608, "text": "He just like, I don't know, he just left high school and started being the lead something. ", "start": 147.02, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 166.32, "text": "He currently has left Yahoo and is currently the chief design officer and co-founder of a stealth startup, and I guess we can't talk about that or what it does or where it's located.", "start": 153.54921348314608, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 168.12, "text": "Hush, hush.", "start": 166.32, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 169.75764705882352, "text": "Hush, hush. ", "start": 168.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 170.44, "text": "Okay.", "start": 169.75764705882352, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 172.147012987013, "text": "Nothing to break on this show? ", "start": 170.44, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 174.68, "text": "Nothing you're willing to announce here first?", "start": 172.147012987013, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 177.44, "text": "I'd have to virtually kill the audience.", "start": 174.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 181.16727272727272, "text": "It's a Facebook privacy tool, I believe. ", "start": 177.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 181.44, "text": "No?", "start": 181.16727272727272, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 182.44, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 181.44, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 183.44, "text": "I'm just fishing.", "start": 182.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 184.96205128205128, "text": "You're close. ", "start": 183.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 187.68, "text": "It's just a fishing tool.", "start": 184.96205128205128, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 188.65156626506024, "text": "It's a fishing tool. ", "start": 187.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 189.16048192771086, "text": "Very good. ", "start": 188.65156626506024, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 190.270843373494, "text": "Okay, and the reason... ", "start": 189.16048192771086, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 205.88, "text": "We're going to talk to Luke about many things, cabbages and kings, but the reason we have him here with us today in particular is to discuss mobile web design and generally discuss design being informed by mobile design. ", "start": 190.270843373494, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 210.04000000000002, "text": "In other words, well, how would you say this, Luke? ", "start": 205.88, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 214.55714285714288, "text": "Typically we do mobile design as kind of an add-on at the end, right? ", "start": 210.04000000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 217.13846153846154, "text": "Like, oh, they wanted a mobile site too. ", "start": 214.55714285714288, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 218.83692307692309, "text": "What can we leave off? ", "start": 217.13846153846154, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 220.24, "text": "That kind of thing?", "start": 218.83692307692309, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 221.24, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 220.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 222.24, "text": "You're suggesting...", "start": 221.24, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 223.24, "text": "The opposite.", "start": 222.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 224.68, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 223.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 225.68, "text": "I'm suggesting the opposite.", "start": 224.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 228.68, "text": "How does that work?", "start": 225.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 229.0290909090909, "text": "Sure. ", "start": 228.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 240.2847311827957, "text": "So as you mentioned, the way we usually go building web services is we'll go build kind of the desktop PC version up front and start building in the capabilities and the limitations of that system. ", "start": 229.0290909090909, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 244.42109890109893, "text": "And then afterwards we might say, oh, hey, can we create a mobile version of this? ", "start": 240.2847311827957, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 249.84963855421685, "text": "Can we kind of port some of these features over and create a quote-unquote mobile version? ", "start": 244.42109890109893, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 256.84, "text": "But I think increasingly that's becoming kind of a backwards way of doing things because of the way mobile is growing. ", "start": 249.84963855421685, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 260.296, "text": "And it's really kind of outrageous the way it's growing. ", "start": 256.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 264.4041379310345, "text": "I believe the mobile web is growing eight times faster than the desktop web grew. ", "start": 260.296, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 270.88, "text": "So back in the heyday of AOL, things are going eight times faster now in the mobile space.", "start": 264.4041379310345, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 276.24, "text": "That's amazing just in itself because I've just been reviewing how fast the web grew.", "start": 270.88, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 282.8366265060241, "text": "It went from like 3 million users in 95 to like 100 million users in 97. ", "start": 276.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 284.994606741573, "text": "And that's exponential. ", "start": 282.8366265060241, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 287.6238202247191, "text": "It doesn't even cover it. ", "start": 284.994606741573, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 289.241797752809, "text": "That's amazing. ", "start": 287.6238202247191, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 297.6455172413793, "text": "And it went from like 240 hosts in 1994 to like we have millions now, uncountable. ", "start": 289.241797752809, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 301.68, "text": "They're all porn, but we have millions.", "start": 297.6455172413793, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 303.2, "text": "So therefore they are countable.", "start": 301.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 305.36987012987015, "text": "And you're saying it's faster than that? ", "start": 303.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 307.24, "text": "Mobile adoption is faster than that?", "start": 305.36987012987015, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 307.6106666666667, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 307.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 309.52577777777776, "text": "It's outpacing by eight times. ", "start": 307.6106666666667, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 319.8, "text": "If you look at heavy mobile data users, we're looking at one billion people within the next two years using heavy mobile data.", "start": 309.52577777777776, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 324.8, "text": "That's all over the world?", "start": 319.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 325.23482352941176, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 324.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 325.9595294117647, "text": "Yes, sir. ", "start": 325.23482352941176, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 331.96, "text": "I've got a number of little data things I can kind of pull up here if you guys are interested in hearing in more depth.", "start": 325.9595294117647, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 334.1822222222222, "text": "Yeah, I think that'd be pretty cool to hear that. ", "start": 331.96, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 339.68559139784946, "text": "I think one of the things that obviously is making a big impact in this is the popularity of devices. ", "start": 334.1822222222222, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 348.3186666666666, "text": "Really all of the mobile devices that we have now, but especially things like the iPad, the iPhone, we always sort of talk about those devices. ", "start": 339.68559139784946, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 352.52, "text": "And people are probably sick and tired of hearing about them already.", "start": 348.3186666666666, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 358.02390804597707, "text": "But you have to look at the impact that they're having, especially in the kind of work that we do in the web sphere. ", "start": 352.52, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 364.30292134831467, "text": "The fact that for so long, we were focused on just getting the data out there. ", "start": 358.02390804597707, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 370.1496774193549, "text": "And then it was, well, how do we get it out there to these other browsers with a consistent experience? ", "start": 364.30292134831467, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 374.9153488372093, "text": "And now it's, how do we get it to these entirely new generation of platforms? ", "start": 370.1496774193549, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 376.04837209302326, "text": "What changes though? ", "start": 374.9153488372093, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 381.73333333333335, "text": "And while you're pulling those figures up, maybe we can think about this and talk about this for a second. ", "start": 376.04837209302326, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 384.03414634146344, "text": "What changes in the mentality of the designer? ", "start": 381.73333333333335, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 387.67764705882354, "text": "And this is something that Jeffrey, I wanted to talk to you about on the show. ", "start": 384.03414634146344, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 396.25391304347824, "text": "Does your mentality and focus in the way that you go about designing change or should it change when you think about these other platforms? ", "start": 387.67764705882354, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 408.72, "text": "Are you still concerned with designing a consistent experience for an iPad or an iPhone as the experience that you're designing for a web browser or has that changed along with it?", "start": 396.25391304347824, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 410.15741935483874, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 409.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 413.13032258064516, "text": "We think about it all the time. ", "start": 410.15741935483874, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 420.60089887640453, "text": "I think it's really, the big difference is with phones, I think, because you've got a much smaller screen. ", "start": 413.13032258064516, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 427.64571428571435, "text": "And I think that's what Luke's talking about mainly, as we'll find out when we actually listen to Luke. ", "start": 420.60089887640453, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 433.0959090909091, "text": "But yeah, I mean, with the iPad, we haven't done any iPad apps yet. ", "start": 427.64571428571435, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 438.66045454545457, "text": "And I think of the iPad as just a nice delivery system for a website, right? ", "start": 433.0959090909091, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 439.54, "text": "It's the same. ", "start": 438.66045454545457, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 449.972380952381, "text": "You lose hover, but you gain touch and maybe there's some ways we can start incorporating some of that into our website designs, which again is something I'd like to hear more about from Luke. ", "start": 439.54, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 452.2819047619048, "text": "But yeah, I think you have to, yeah. ", "start": 449.972380952381, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 454.72, "text": "Go ahead and give us some stats.", "start": 452.2819047619048, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 454.98901098901104, "text": "Sure. ", "start": 454.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 458.4413186813187, "text": "Well, let's go to the stats for a second and then I'll answer that question. ", "start": 454.98901098901104, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 460.992183908046, "text": "You kind of mentioned the iPhone growth. ", "start": 458.4413186813187, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 467.8281818181818, "text": "Basically, AT&T's mobile data traffic in the past three years has increased 50 times. ", "start": 460.992183908046, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 473.76, "text": "So they saw a 4,932% increase starting on June 29th, 2007.", "start": 467.8281818181818, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 480.07627906976745, "text": "And there was releases in July 2008, June 2009 of additional iPhones. ", "start": 473.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 487.5581818181818, "text": "And so them kind of being the, I guess you could say furthest along in terms of heavy data usage. ", "start": 480.07627906976745, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 498.08232558139537, "text": "There's a study released by Cisco not too long ago that showed the average iPhone user uses about 30 times as much mobile traffic as a feature phone user. ", "start": 487.5581818181818, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 510.60279069767444, "text": "And as you start seeing more and more devices that are connected to these networks that have a good web browsing experience, I think you'll see comparable numbers in the Android space and who knows what HP is going to do with a web OS. ", "start": 498.08232558139537, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 517.952380952381, "text": "I was actually just reading an article where the CEO of HP was saying, well, we didn't buy Palm for the smartphones. ", "start": 510.60279069767444, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 526.52, "text": "We bought it for their web operating system, which we want to put on all of the mobile devices that we have out there that are connected to the network.", "start": 517.952380952381, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 530.2928571428571, "text": "Does that surprise you, them coming out and saying that? ", "start": 526.52, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 532.0799999999999, "text": "Was that a surprise to you?", "start": 530.2928571428571, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 535.6577777777777, "text": "I think it's sort of a semantic thing, right? ", "start": 532.0799999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 537.2133333333333, "text": "Is it a smartphone? ", "start": 535.6577777777777, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 539.0799999999999, "text": "Is it a mobile computer?", "start": 537.2133333333333, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 540.7481318681318, "text": "Is it a, I don't know. ", "start": 539.0799999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 551.4965853658538, "text": "I imagine they're going to have different form factors for computing devices and there's going to be mobile form factors and they're going to be connected to the network, so call it what you will. ", "start": 540.7481318681318, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 557.32, "text": "If it's small enough and it makes calls, maybe it's a smartphone, maybe it's a mobile computer.", "start": 551.4965853658538, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 558.6895000000001, "text": "And I wonder if it is semantics. ", "start": 557.32, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 560.474, "text": "Here's the quote that you're referring to. ", "start": 558.6895000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 562.2380487804879, "text": "It's by HP CEO Mark Hurd. ", "start": 560.474, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 566.8800000000001, "text": "He says, we didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business.", "start": 562.2380487804879, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 571.3028571428572, "text": "He goes on to say that doesn't in any way make sense. ", "start": 566.8800000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 575.5813953488372, "text": "And he says, and I tell people that, but it doesn't seem to resonate well. ", "start": 571.3028571428572, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 576.6162790697674, "text": "We bought it for the IP. ", "start": 575.5813953488372, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 581.7245454545455, "text": "The web OS is one of the two ground up pieces of software that's built as a web operating environment. ", "start": 576.6162790697674, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 587.72, "text": "And he goes on to say that he has tens of millions of small form factor web connected devices.", "start": 581.7245454545455, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 594.48, "text": "I mean, do you expect that these are the kinds of devices, Luke, that we're going to need to think about deploying websites to?", "start": 587.72, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 594.7971428571428, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 594.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 596.7, "text": "Well, let me back up half a second. ", "start": 594.7971428571428, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 607.0799999999999, "text": "I think the reason why people question him when he says we're not getting in the smartphone business is smartphones are projected to be the past PCs in terms of sales next year. ", "start": 596.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 614.1695238095238, "text": "So it's a huge booming opportunity to have mobile computing network connected devices in people's hands. ", "start": 607.0799999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 619.4680898876404, "text": "And the sales of that, if other regions or any indicator are going to blow up and have been blowing up. ", "start": 614.1695238095238, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 629.6982417582418, "text": "But when you look at what they consider to be kind of a mobile connected device, the research a lot of people look at comes from Mary Meeker over on Morgan Stanley Research. ", "start": 619.4680898876404, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 637.0847191011236, "text": "And she has this presentation, which I can dig up for you guys, but it's around kind of mobile, the next big technology growth. ", "start": 629.6982417582418, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 642.9436781609195, "text": "And essentially what they say is, you know, PCs were sort of 10 times the mini computer market. ", "start": 637.0847191011236, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 646.6133333333332, "text": "Desktop internet computers was basically 10 times the PC market. ", "start": 642.9436781609195, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 649.98, "text": "And mobile is going to be 10 times the size of the desktop internet market.", "start": 646.6133333333332, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 664.0771428571428, "text": "And in mobile, when they talk about 10 billion plus devices, they're talking about tablets, smart connected MP3 players, cell phones, smartphones, wireless home appliances, things like the Kindle, mobile video devices. ", "start": 649.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 666.7496703296703, "text": "There's a wide range of things. ", "start": 664.0771428571428, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 673.8227586206896, "text": "And I honestly think anything that can have a screen is probably going to be connected to the network in some way at some point. ", "start": 666.7496703296703, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 676.62, "text": "Just because, you know, why not, right?", "start": 673.8227586206896, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 678.2386046511627, "text": "Sure, it should be. ", "start": 676.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 694.7232558139535, "text": "At some point, it's not unrealistic to assume that the shower, you know, that your shower or your water heater could have a little screen and that when you're away, you know, you'd be able to tell if your water heater, if you need to like have someone come in and adjust your water heater or something like that. ", "start": 678.2386046511627, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 707.8571764705882, "text": "There's no reason for, you know, if you've read the book Everywhere by, wow, by Adam Greenfield, the great Adam Greenfield, it pretty much talks about that kind of world. ", "start": 694.7232558139535, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 713.3297674418606, "text": "And he's not necessarily a fan of that kind of world, but that's the world we're moving to. ", "start": 707.8571764705882, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 717.1518181818183, "text": "And there's no reason for everything not to be on the network. ", "start": 713.3297674418606, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 719.5354545454545, "text": "I guess bandwidth is a consideration. ", "start": 717.1518181818183, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 723.3000000000001, "text": "Do mobile devices, but they're using a whole different bandwidth, right?", "start": 719.5354545454545, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 725.7564705882354, "text": "Well, it depends on how they connect, right? ", "start": 723.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 732.004367816092, "text": "But if they're on 3G, then they're using different stuff than when they're connected through Wi-Fi or 4G. ", "start": 725.7564705882354, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 734.3647619047618, "text": "Really depends on what they have. ", "start": 732.004367816092, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 739.1990476190476, "text": "FedEx guy just showed up at my door and he went away. ", "start": 734.3647619047618, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 739.7361904761905, "text": "Okay. ", "start": 739.1990476190476, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 741.9, "text": "Speaking of a whole different network.", "start": 739.7361904761905, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 753.0892134831461, "text": "Luke, do you anticipate though, that all of these devices, I mean, you just, you bring this up by saying 3G, I mean, obviously there's going to be an evolution of the kind of connectivity that these devices have. ", "start": 741.9, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 763.26, "text": "And, you know, we've seen multiple, multiple next generations of Wi-Fi, for example, just over the last few years, we consistently see 3G, 4G and onward.", "start": 753.0892134831461, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 775.626511627907, "text": "I know this kind of gets into the technical side of the house, but do those speeds and the changing of those speeds play a lot into how we think of designing that experience for these kinds of devices? ", "start": 763.26, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 777.9874418604651, "text": "Are we still waiting for things to get faster? ", "start": 775.626511627907, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 782.22, "text": "What's sort of the limitation that you see right now?", "start": 777.9874418604651, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 791.7117647058823, "text": "I wouldn't wait for things to get faster just because everybody's for years have been, oh, as soon as we have broadband, right, we can deliver rich media experiences. ", "start": 782.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 792.6262222222223, "text": "Okay, that's great. ", "start": 791.7117647058823, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 798.047341772152, "text": "But then while you're waiting for broadband, all of a sudden mobile exploded and you had limitations of 3G, right? ", "start": 792.6262222222223, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 800.58, "text": "So there goes your rich media experience.", "start": 798.047341772152, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 807.5400000000001, "text": "I love the way Jeremy Keith defines rich media experience as a connection between people.", "start": 800.58, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 816.1948837209303, "text": "So that reading your friend's comment on Twitter and laughing or crying, you know, when something sad happens to your friend, that's a rich media experience. ", "start": 807.5400000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 818.1910344827587, "text": "And how much bandwidth are we talking about? ", "start": 816.1948837209303, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 827.82, "text": "And that's an experience that can, you know, easily be transmitted on any mobile device, even not a smartphone, but kind of like, you know, phones from five years ago, right?", "start": 818.1910344827587, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 828.82, "text": "SMS, right?", "start": 827.82, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 829.82, "text": "Right, right.", "start": 828.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 832.0083870967743, "text": "I mean, you can do that through text messaging. ", "start": 829.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 836.4818604651164, "text": "I think there's something like 4 billion text messages sent per day in the U.S. alone. ", "start": 832.0083870967743, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 840.089090909091, "text": "So a lot of data and a lot of connections are being done there. ", "start": 836.4818604651164, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 845.5465979381444, "text": "And then, you know, also different regions in the world have different levels of bandwidth connectivity. ", "start": 840.089090909091, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 848.82, "text": "Different devices will support different types of connectivity.", "start": 845.5465979381444, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 853.86, "text": "My view is always try to optimize the heck out of what you're doing in terms of performance.", "start": 848.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 865.1432989690722, "text": "Because even on the web, when you've got broadband connections, a couple of milliseconds here, a couple of milliseconds there, there's been a lot of studies that show they really negatively impact user experience. ", "start": 853.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 875.62, "text": "And I guarantee everybody tuning in on the phone or on the web or through the chat channel has had an experience where they're sitting and waiting for a page to load and they click back and they never get there.", "start": 865.1432989690722, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 876.62, "text": "Right.", "start": 875.62, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 878.5348936170212, "text": "And I think that's something that happens all the time. ", "start": 876.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 880.084347826087, "text": "And we need to be very, very cognizant of it. ", "start": 878.5348936170212, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 884.5799999999999, "text": "So I don't wait for the day when bandwidth is going to be this holy grail that, oh my gosh, it works. ", "start": 880.084347826087, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 886.78, "text": "I can send everything I want down the pipe. ", "start": 884.5799999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 891.62, "text": "Maybe we'll get there at one point, but shouldn't wait for it.", "start": 886.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 895.4421739130435, "text": "It's the same reason Google wouldn't have rounded corners. ", "start": 891.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 918.3800000000001, "text": "Pre-CSS3, pre-support for rounded corners in Chrome and Safari and Opera and Firefox, before all that, they wouldn't have rounded corners because the hacks that were used to create the rounded corners added half a byte to a page and multiplied by the hundreds of millions of users they have every hour.", "start": 895.4421739130435, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 921.983076923077, "text": "That was unacceptable bandwidth loss. ", "start": 919.0600000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 924.2907692307693, "text": "It would make a slight delay. ", "start": 921.983076923077, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 926.0600000000001, "text": "This is for their apps.", "start": 924.2907692307693, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 932.8012765957446, "text": "Interestingly, if you look at all the major sites, they're all massively vigilant about performance. ", "start": 927.58, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 935.4812765957446, "text": "Even Facebook recently has been going to town. ", "start": 932.8012765957446, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 941.55, "text": "I think at the Velocity conference maybe this week or something, they said they boosted speeds again two times. ", "start": 935.4812765957446, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 946.1830769230769, "text": "And they're just vigilant, vigilant, vigilant about making things faster and faster. ", "start": 941.55, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 958.54, "text": "They released this Facebook Lite version and now they released this Facebook Zero version for mobile where they're trying to make the performance better and better so you can actually get your hands on the content instead of sitting there watching things spin.", "start": 946.1830769230769, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 968.5269662921348, "text": "I love using Facebook, the iPhone version of Facebook, on an iPad because it's all slimmed down and has the features I actually need. ", "start": 958.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 972.598, "text": "It's a mobile experience and that's what we're going to talk about. ", "start": 968.5269662921348, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 978.7829787234042, "text": "It's a mobile experience but it has the speed of the iPad's processor so I don't have to even wait. ", "start": 972.598, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 993.7, "text": "The guy, I forget his name, who did a brilliant job of shrinking Facebook and putting it on the iPhone, whether you then look at it on a more robust platform like the iPad, it's really a dream and it's really a lot of fun.", "start": 978.7829787234042, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 997.3105263157895, "text": "I also know that Facebook hired Nicole Sullivan. ", "start": 993.7, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1009.0969230769232, "text": "She just recently completed a stint optimizing the CSS files for Facebook because I think they had something like 5,000 lines of code at one point. ", "start": 997.3105263157895, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1021.0029213483147, "text": "Because of the way Facebook's developed with lots of small teams in parallel, they're never going to have one clean style sheet with 100 rules in it. ", "start": 1009.0969230769232, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1029.4462068965518, "text": "It's always going to be bigger than your site or mine, what we would like them to be. ", "start": 1021.0029213483147, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1035.97908045977, "text": "But they were able, by working with this expert, Nicole Sullivan, to shrink it on down quite a bit. ", "start": 1029.4462068965518, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1037.5293333333334, "text": "Because all that stuff matters. ", "start": 1035.97908045977, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1038.7773333333332, "text": "It matters to their users. ", "start": 1037.5293333333334, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1040.3488888888887, "text": "You can always go somewhere else. ", "start": 1038.7773333333332, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1041.955, "text": "Maybe with Facebook you can't. ", "start": 1040.3488888888887, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1042.78, "text": "But who knows? ", "start": 1041.955, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1049.2820689655173, "text": "If someone came along offering the same features at less bandwidth and a cleaner interface, they could lose. ", "start": 1042.78, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1051.78, "text": "They can't take their users for granted.", "start": 1049.2820689655173, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1055.7175, "text": "Well, that's kind of what they did to MySpace, right? ", "start": 1051.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1066.4299999999998, "text": "If you look at one of the core differences between Facebook and MySpace, especially actually to back up even a second, one of the things that I think killed Friendster was the performance of it. ", "start": 1055.7175, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1073.297272727273, "text": "Friendster was one of the first social networks and they had a lot of the features that ultimately MySpace and then Facebook had. ", "start": 1066.4299999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1082.9, "text": "But that thing was just the slowest, most painful to use product from a performance perspective and you heard gripes about it over and over and over again.", "start": 1073.297272727273, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1100.4432558139536, "text": "I wanted to jump on one thing that you mentioned there around the smaller form factor of Facebook and how taking the time to design what your product experience is in a mobile environment really forces you to focus on the stuff that matters. ", "start": 1082.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1104.42, "text": "And I think Joe Hewitt's the guy you're referring to that built the original iPhone.", "start": 1100.4432558139536, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1105.5184615384617, "text": "Right, right. ", "start": 1104.42, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 1108.5, "text": "He built the first Facebook app, yeah.", "start": 1105.5184615384617, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 1115.0102222222224, "text": "And now that Facebook app kind of oscillates between it and the KoiPond app for it is number one in the Apple App Store. ", "start": 1108.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1119.1145454545456, "text": "I think they're like in this heated competition of who's going to win. ", "start": 1115.0102222222224, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1131.9972043010753, "text": "So when he went through and did that process, I had a quote from him that I like to reference because I think it kind of speaks to why I believe going mobile first is a good design approach. ", "start": 1119.1145454545456, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1141.350222222222, "text": "He says, my goal was initially just to make a mobile companion, but I became convinced it was possible to create a version of Facebook that was actually better than the website. ", "start": 1131.9972043010753, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1149.8213043478258, "text": "And I think some of these natural constraints in mobile are there to help you create something that's better than the website. ", "start": 1141.350222222222, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1157.22, "text": "Essentially, with just even screen size, as Jeffrey mentioned that a little bit earlier, typically we're designing for 1024 by 768.", "start": 1149.8213043478258, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1167.18, "text": "If you look at an iPhone screen or the first generation of Android phones or the first Palm screens, you got 320 by 480 pixels.", "start": 1157.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1178.949655172414, "text": "So you just lost 80 percent of your canvas, which means 80 percent of the space you had to throw links, buttons, images, pictures, tables, whatever the heck you had on that page is gone. ", "start": 1167.54, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1187.94, "text": "And when you throw away 80 percent of the stuff you have on either a home page or a feature page or a content page or whatever, you have to determine what stays.", "start": 1178.949655172414, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1190.5800000000002, "text": "And the things that stay should be the most important things.", "start": 1188.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1196.02, "text": "And the most important things should be the things that get your users what they want and help drive your business.", "start": 1190.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1201.6200000000001, "text": "You're touching on the core of design, what design really is.", "start": 1196.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1206.7786813186813, "text": "And people always talk about, you know, the design's finished when there's nothing else you can remove from it. ", "start": 1201.6200000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1212.4658823529412, "text": "It's very easy to make something look to be a certain kind of designer, to be a decorator. ", "start": 1206.7786813186813, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1213.26, "text": "It's very easy.", "start": 1212.4658823529412, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1214.3300000000002, "text": "Well, it's not easy. ", "start": 1213.3400000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1215.98, "text": "It takes a lot of talent and skill.", "start": 1214.3300000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1219.94, "text": "But it's possible to develop Photoshop, you know, Photoshop abilities.", "start": 1216.3400000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1232.06, "text": "It's possible to have a good eye and know how to make something look pretty by putting lots of textures and gradations and curves and shapes and all this kind of stuff that doesn't really need to be there and make a really nice looking web page.", "start": 1220.3, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1235.18, "text": "But is that necessarily good design?", "start": 1232.6200000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1239.94, "text": "Most people think of design, a lot of people think of design as that, that aspect of it.", "start": 1235.18, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1244.9, "text": "And that's really, to me, that's always a secondary thing of what being a designer is.", "start": 1239.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1247.5, "text": "That, you know, for a while that may be all you can do.", "start": 1244.9, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1249.54, "text": "And it's great that you're getting those Photoshop skills.", "start": 1247.5, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1250.5800000000002, "text": "You certainly need them.", "start": 1249.54, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1252.7, "text": "But really design is problem solving.", "start": 1250.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1258.8200000000002, "text": "And so focusing on what the user needs, focusing on, you know, a content strategy and a brand strategy and delivering those.", "start": 1252.7, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1261.78, "text": "Every website, whether mobile or not, should do that.", "start": 1259.26, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1270.26, "text": "But I know you've seen lots of examples, and we all have, where there's so much going on on a page, I don't even know what, you know, where to throw up first.", "start": 1261.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1271.62, "text": "I mean, it's just...", "start": 1270.26, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1274.1, "text": "Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it.", "start": 1271.62, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 1277.3799999999999, "text": "Well, it's a gluttony of resources, right?", "start": 1274.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1279.46, "text": "When you have a lot, you use a lot.", "start": 1277.3799999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1283.78, "text": "When you have constraints, you are forced to focus.", "start": 1280.34, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1292.1399999999999, "text": "And I actually think design is, I used to use this phrase a lot, design is the process of gradually applying constraints until an elegant solution remains.", "start": 1283.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1293.54, "text": "I can't remember who said it.", "start": 1292.3799999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1295.1799999999998, "text": "Someone smarter than me said it.", "start": 1293.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1297.1799999999998, "text": "But that's always resonated with me, right?", "start": 1295.58, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1300.8999999999999, "text": "Like, okay, we have this business requirement, or our users need to do this.", "start": 1297.1799999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1301.78, "text": "That's a constraint.", "start": 1300.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1304.9399999999998, "text": "Or we only got 320 by 480 pixels.", "start": 1302.3799999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1305.6999999999998, "text": "That's a constraint.", "start": 1304.9399999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1312.58, "text": "Just keep applying these constraints onto your idea until it is the right solution in that environment.", "start": 1305.6999999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1316.86, "text": "When you find that phrase exactly as written, I would like to get that tattooed.", "start": 1313.1399999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1318.3000000000002, "text": "That is the greatest thing.", "start": 1317.3400000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1327.7800000000002, "text": "Another problem that we constantly encounter, I mean, we're lucky we have really smart clients and all that.", "start": 1320.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1334.7, "text": "But when you're working with people, working for people, there's always this, I guess it's a constraint in a different way.", "start": 1327.7800000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1336.38, "text": "There's always the committee.", "start": 1334.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1343.38, "text": "There's always the group of people who, you know, the publisher really wants this, and the editor-in-chief really wants that.", "start": 1336.8200000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1345.22, "text": "And the marketing people want this.", "start": 1343.38, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1352.26, "text": "And the advertising department says it's really important to leave room for all 700 different ad shapes that we might sell.", "start": 1345.3, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1360.9, "text": "And by the time you're done, you have a very rich page in a way because you have lots of content on it.", "start": 1352.26, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1373.1000000000001, "text": "But you also have a non-editorial, non-curated, kind of undesigned experience where the best you can do is try to guide eye tracking through the sea of stuff.", "start": 1360.9, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1383.22, "text": "I mean, it's even with a great client to sell them on constantly cutting stuff out and simplifying and saying, that doesn't have to be in a flyout on the nav.", "start": 1373.3000000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1383.7, "text": "It's okay.", "start": 1383.22, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1385.14, "text": "People will find that if they want it.", "start": 1383.7, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1386.1000000000001, "text": "Here's how they'll find it.", "start": 1385.14, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1390.5800000000002, "text": "Or we can do that contextually, or we can save that for its own section.", "start": 1386.1000000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1397.22, "text": "You know, it's very hard to sell a lean homepage, a lean landing page, all that stuff.", "start": 1390.5800000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1407.58, "text": "But when you're doing mobile, which a lot of clients think of as an afterthought, suddenly a lot of those handcuffs come off.", "start": 1397.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1414.54, "text": "Suddenly you have more freedom, I think, to just say, look, we've only got, like you said, 300 square pixels.", "start": 1407.58, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1416.74, "text": "So something's got to go.", "start": 1414.54, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1418.18, "text": "What do we actually want people to do?", "start": 1416.74, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1419.6200000000001, "text": "I mean, can you talk about that a little more?", "start": 1418.18, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1424.02, "text": "Because I think initially we were talking about technological restrictions and bandwidth and things.", "start": 1419.6200000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1425.3, "text": "And those are all very important.", "start": 1424.02, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1432.94, "text": "But I think what designing for mobile does in terms of strategy of user experience is really the key.", "start": 1425.34, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1435.1399999999999, "text": "I think you nailed it there.", "start": 1434.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1438.58, "text": "You have only so much space, so you have to prioritize.", "start": 1435.1399999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1443.7, "text": "And I can't tell you how many times I've heard people kind of doing this backwards thing.", "start": 1438.58, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1449.46, "text": "So I gave a talk at LinkedIn about two weeks ago, and I was chatting with some of the guys", "start": 1443.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1449.94, "text": "over there.", "start": 1449.46, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 1456.66, "text": "And he said, oh, you know, we understand where you're going with this mobile-first thing because we've been iterating on this iPhone app.", "start": 1449.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1460.46, "text": "And recently our CEO has been, you know, I love the simplicity of this iPhone app.", "start": 1456.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1462.66, "text": "Why the hell doesn't our website work like this?", "start": 1460.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1472.7, "text": "And I keep hearing that sentiment more and more now where people have an experience on either an Android device or an iPhone device or even the iPad or what have you.", "start": 1463.3, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1502.42, "text": "It sounds like what you're saying is if you can get mobile on the front burner in an early meeting with your client or your in-house client, if you work in-house, then you could actually use that as a sales tool to bring back to the committee or to bring back to the group of 5,000 stakeholders that all want their thing on the home page and say, you know, guys, we were all agreeing what a great experience the mobile is.", "start": 1473.1000000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1510.74, "text": "If we want to have that same experience on the website, if we want our users to have that experience, then we're going to have to trim.", "start": 1503.5400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1518.06, "text": "Or is it a function that people want what's on the mobile and they'd love, in theory, they'd love their website to behave that way.", "start": 1511.02, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1528.6507692307694, "text": "But once you give them a 1024 wide screen, they just, you know, it's like, I'd like to live a spiritual life, but if you put a million dollars in my bank account, I'm going to spend it. ", "start": 1518.46, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1529.66, "text": "Is it like that?", "start": 1528.6507692307694, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1531.62, "text": "Yeah, they can't help themselves.", "start": 1529.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1534.1, "text": "Well, I do think you can sell.", "start": 1531.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1535.74, "text": "So here's the process I would go through.", "start": 1534.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1540.1, "text": "I think you can sell people on doing mobile first because of this huge opportunity, right?", "start": 1535.74, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1546.66, "text": "Because there's going to be more smartphones sold than PCs next year because the mobile web is growing eight times faster.", "start": 1540.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1557.9777142857142, "text": "You can throw a whole bunch of numbers at people who are very business focused and who are kind of revenue driven and opportunity driven to say, this is something that's really important. ", "start": 1546.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1560.86, "text": "We should focus on it first rather than secondarily.", "start": 1557.9777142857142, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1566.1000000000001, "text": "So once you kind of hit that roadblock and like I said, there's tons of information and data out there that supports this case.", "start": 1561.26, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1572.94, "text": "Once you kind of sell that, then you say, OK, well, here we are designing the mobile site and we have really limited space.", "start": 1566.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1574.22, "text": "We have limited speed.", "start": 1572.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1575.94, "text": "People are using touched interaction.", "start": 1574.26, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1577.38, "text": "So we have to simplify things.", "start": 1575.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1578.5, "text": "We can't use hovers.", "start": 1577.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1580.3400000000001, "text": "We have to be focused on performance.", "start": 1578.74, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1583.46, "text": "And ta-da, here comes this very focused design.", "start": 1580.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1588.38, "text": "Now when it comes time to go do the web design, let's not lose that focus, right?", "start": 1583.8600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1597.02, "text": "Let's not forget the fact that we spent X amount of time prioritizing what's most important for our customers and for our business and laying it out appropriately.", "start": 1588.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1603.18, "text": "Let's take those learnings and let's take that process and apply it to the desktop so we have that same kind of laser focus there.", "start": 1597.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1610.8723076923077, "text": "But frankly, the way people use the web is not that different from the way they use mobile, right? ", "start": 1603.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1611.98, "text": "They're very in and out.", "start": 1610.8723076923077, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1615.66, "text": "Most page views are under 10 seconds.", "start": 1612.02, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1620.3899999999999, "text": "I think the mean and the study that I cite sometimes is a two to three seconds per page. ", "start": 1615.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1624.02, "text": "So one, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand done.", "start": 1620.3899999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1629.58, "text": "You have to be focused in that kind of environment because you have to get a key message across to people.", "start": 1624.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1646.6968, "text": "You have to explain to them what they can do there, how they can do it really, really darn quickly and without focus, with a whole bunch of gibberish on the page and, you know, like kind of UI, I don't know, UI debris and content crap or whatever you want to call it. ", "start": 1629.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1648.46, "text": "Fluffy stuff that they throw on there.", "start": 1646.6968, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1650.98, "text": "It's very hard to communicate.", "start": 1649.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1651.3098113207548, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 1651.02, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1653.58, "text": "Chart junk, you know, UI debris, what have you.", "start": 1651.3098113207548, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1656.3400000000001, "text": "A lot of that stuff is very unnecessary.", "start": 1654.58, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1660.9, "text": "So working from mobile backwards gives you that focus.", "start": 1657.3, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1665.182857142857, "text": "And hopefully you've sold people on that prioritization exercise and you've sold them on. ", "start": 1660.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1670.3400000000001, "text": "This is what has to be on that initial screen and on this key screen and on this series of actions.", "start": 1665.182857142857, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1673.1000000000001, "text": "And then, you know, don't let go of that.", "start": 1670.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1673.651724137931, "text": "Right. ", "start": 1673.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1675.26, "text": "Hold on tight to that.", "start": 1673.651724137931, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1689.42, "text": "There is a quote inside of the iPad user interface guidelines, which says you should not view the large iPad screen as an invitation to bring back all the functionality you pruned from your iPhone application.", "start": 1675.62, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1693.98, "text": "Which I think is really spot on.", "start": 1690.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1697.46, "text": "So use it instead just to.", "start": 1695.5, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1701.14, "text": "What would you use that extra space for?", "start": 1699.74, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1703.1, "text": "What does Apple think you should use the extra space for?", "start": 1701.14, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1709.7615384615387, "text": "Well, I think they should use the extra space for making those experiences much more immersive and rich. ", "start": 1704.0600000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1710.0200000000002, "text": "Right.", "start": 1709.7615384615387, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1718.0600000000002, "text": "So, like, let's say you're building a video player right now, you've got this full canvas to display the content.", "start": 1710.0600000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1723.3000000000002, "text": "Or let's say you're working through like Twitter.", "start": 1718.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1723.7122352941178, "text": "Right. ", "start": 1723.3400000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1729.2600000000002, "text": "Instead of making everything super tiny fonts in that list of updates, you can make things a little bit bigger now.", "start": 1723.7122352941178, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1735.42, "text": "Maybe you can allow people to actually see more than one action in the UI.", "start": 1729.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1744.46, "text": "But that doesn't remove the core focus of here's the stream of updates that I'm looking at and they're organized in such and such way because those are the pieces of content that I care about.", "start": 1735.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1752.2085714285713, "text": "Like when Flickr built their mobile app, they went from 60 plus things in their menu to this. ", "start": 1744.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1757.2555555555555, "text": "Those of you that have been to m.flickr.com, they have these four blue bars at the top. ", "start": 1752.2085714285713, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1762.14, "text": "Recent activity, uploads from your contacts, today's interestingness and photos near you.", "start": 1757.2555555555555, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1763.0977777777778, "text": "Yep. ", "start": 1762.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1765.82, "text": "So they nailed what people actually do on Flickr.", "start": 1763.0977777777778, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1769.7, "text": "And if you watch people use Flickr, they look at what the activity is on their stream.", "start": 1765.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1771.42, "text": "Has anybody commented on my photos?", "start": 1769.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1773.18, "text": "Has anybody favorited my photos?", "start": 1771.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1776.18, "text": "Has anything happened in a pool or group I'm in?", "start": 1773.18, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1778.34, "text": "So they really care about this update stream.", "start": 1776.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1781.94, "text": "They want to see what their contacts are sharing in terms of pictures.", "start": 1778.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1787.42, "text": "And then if they're kind of bored and want to kill some time or just see some beautiful photography, they want to see what's interesting.", "start": 1782.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1790.8600000000001, "text": "And so those are these like three core use cases.", "start": 1788.2600000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1799.0600000000002, "text": "When you bring those to the iPad, I think you just have an opportunity to make that more immersive and more directly engaging.", "start": 1791.5400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1804.8412121212123, "text": "So you can imagine the difference between interestingness photos on the iPhone versus the iPad, right? ", "start": 1799.0600000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1807.7, "text": "The iPad has a very beautiful photography experience.", "start": 1804.8412121212123, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1811.5400000000002, "text": "Take advantage of the whole screen and really let that stuff stand out.", "start": 1807.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1823.1399999999999, "text": "I love what you're saying about simplifying the user experience and then just letting it be richer on a bigger device because that device is more immersive.", "start": 1812.54, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1843.78, "text": "Some other things that I really like about the mobile focus, the mobile explosion, the fact that your client may be using an old version of Internet Explorer to look at the website, but they also have an Android or a Palm Pre or an iPhone in their pocket, probably an iPhone.", "start": 1823.54, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1849.8940229885056, "text": "And they know that that stuff can look really beautiful and type can look really beautiful. ", "start": 1843.78, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1855.8503030303032, "text": "In a strange way, the superiority of the experience on mobile is doing a few things. ", "start": 1849.8940229885056, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1859.26, "text": "It's getting people interested in type who weren't before.", "start": 1855.8503030303032, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1897.18, "text": "The focus on mobile has been really good for web standards because people are more open to the idea, for instance, that support for IE6 may mean a simplified style sheet for IE6 or fewer features on IE6 instead of pixel perfect sameness of experience on every device because they know that the site looks different on every device anyway because the client can now pick up an iPhone and look at it and knows that the experience is different because people have smartphones and they're going to mobile sites that are different, like m.flickr.com is different from Flickr.", "start": 1859.78, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1908.74, "text": "Because of that, there's more acceptance of not wasting a whole lot of energy trying to make every website look the same in every browser and device.", "start": 1897.78, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1911.78, "text": "There's more acceptance that the website can behave slightly differently.", "start": 1909.02, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1930.74, "text": "Let's say if there's a photo gallery, you can have a scroll bar that works really well in IE8 and in Chrome and in Safari and in Opera 10, but you can omit that from IE6 and not worry about it as long as people can still hit forward and back with buttons.", "start": 1912.54, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1934.98, "text": "They don't need to have the really pretty Ajax-y looking scroll bar and it's fine.", "start": 1931.1, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1936.1399999999999, "text": "It's fine.", "start": 1935.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1938.18, "text": "It's a different experience, but it's fine.", "start": 1936.3799999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1957.14, "text": "I think people are getting into the notion that you can spend more time creating smart features and allowing each device to experience that feature as it experiences it and being less anal and less rigid and print-like in their...", "start": 1938.54, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1972.22, "text": "A few years ago, it was considered a badge of honor that your website would look the same in Netscape 4 and act exactly the same in Netscape 4, and that's how we have these really bloated sites, which don't scale well and aren't accessible and all the other problems we know that go with it.", "start": 1957.8600000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1978.6200000000001, "text": "I think the focus on simplicity in mobile and the ubiquity of mobile is helping us in that struggle, too.", "start": 1972.26, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1986.5, "text": "It seems like it's much easier now to sell web standards and to sell the idea that every site doesn't have to look the same in every browser.", "start": 1978.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1987.42, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1987.22, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 1995.42, "text": "And so I think you've hit on two really key points around how thinking about mobile first helps you with challenges we've had in the web design world for years, right?", "start": 1987.6200000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2002.5, "text": "One is that everybody wants to add a whole bunch of crap to the page problem, and mobile helps you deal with that.", "start": 1995.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2019.42, "text": "Two, everybody wants the thing to look exactly the same across every browser, and the fact that there's a whole bunch of different types of form factors of devices connected to the network helps you with that problem because you can clearly illustrate, well, it shouldn't be the same because these are very different experiences, devices, use cases.", "start": 2002.54, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2032.3000000000002, "text": "And then the third thing, which you began to touch on, that I think mobile first helps you with is there's a bunch of capabilities in a lot of the newer mobile platforms that simply don't exist in a desktop and in the older browsers we have.", "start": 2019.8600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2040.98, "text": "So you started to touch on some of the things that we have with fonts in HTML5, quote unquote, capable browsers.", "start": 2032.7800000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2053.02, "text": "On mobile, you know, Android's running WebKit, Apple's running WebKit, Palm's running WebKit, Nokia and RIM both made acquisitions in the space and are moving towards WebKit.", "start": 2041.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2057.62, "text": "And I think they even have beta releases or full releases of those browsers very recently.", "start": 2053.02, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2082.66, "text": "So you actually have a very capable browser across all these devices that can do CSS3, that can do AppCache, so it can store content locally, that can do video via HTML5, right, that can do Canvas, so you can actually render graphics in it using markup and script, that has the geolocation API so you can get access to where the device actually is.", "start": 2058.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2093.14, "text": "All those new capabilities give you a whole bunch of things to work from that you simply don't have when you're trying to design for the IE6 through IE9 world in the desktop.", "start": 2082.8199999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2097.1, "text": "And because you have those new capabilities, you can innovate in really interesting ways.", "start": 2093.8999999999996, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2101.62, "text": "So what could we do with our website if we know the user's location right now?", "start": 2097.3799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2110.8599999999997, "text": "What could we do with our web presence if we could let people, you know, instantly update a photo, not plug in a camera, move it to the desktop, drag it in.", "start": 2102.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2117.6200000000003, "text": "But, you know, there's a camera embedded in the device, you click two buttons and there's a photo integrated with your web content.", "start": 2110.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2129.6600000000003, "text": "I think those capabilities, when they're available to you, make you think about the web in a whole different way, right, because you can do stuff that before was just very, very painful and very, very non-integrated.", "start": 2118.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2131.6200000000003, "text": "That's very exciting.", "start": 2130.6200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2135.42, "text": "I think also touch is a big deal.", "start": 2131.6200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2138.7400000000002, "text": "Touch makes you think about the interface differently, right?", "start": 2135.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2143.0200000000004, "text": "You're not basically presenting people with a text interface and buttons.", "start": 2138.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2155.38, "text": "Instead, you're presenting them with a photo, which, you know, on a device, I touch the photo, I pinch, I zoom, I push the photo to the side and expect that another photo will come up. ", "start": 2143.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2161.6200000000003, "text": "So you have all kinds of different means of accessing content directly, right?", "start": 2155.38, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2162.78, "text": "I think that's a big part of it, too.", "start": 2161.6200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2165.6200000000003, "text": "And it kind of changes the way you think about design.", "start": 2162.78, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2170.74, "text": "Instead of like, here's some content in a box and buttons and what about touch?", "start": 2165.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2178.74, "text": "And how can we start thinking about the different touch capabilities and bringing them into our websites?", "start": 2170.74, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2179.5263736263732, "text": "Sure. ", "start": 2179.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2186.54, "text": "So let me start by answering that question by saying I'm not going to get to, there's no way I'll get to all my thoughts on touch, but I have written them all out.", "start": 2179.5263736263732, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2194.14, "text": "So if you want to go to LukeW.com slash touch, you'll see a lot of resources for what I'm going to talk about here.", "start": 2186.54, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2204.3399999999997, "text": "The one thing about touch that I'll say at the top level is this thing is that this interface paradigm is really, really taking off like crazy.", "start": 2195.8599999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2210.773888888889, "text": "There was 1.03 million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009, right? ", "start": 2204.3399999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2214.74, "text": "So over a million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009.", "start": 2210.773888888889, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2218.02, "text": "There's a hundred thousand Android phones activated per day.", "start": 2215.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2218.715319148936, "text": "Stop. ", "start": 2218.46, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2219.14085106383, "text": "Say that. ", "start": 2218.715319148936, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2220.46, "text": "Let's say that first one again.", "start": 2219.14085106383, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2230.7967441860465, "text": "A million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009, which is huge, right? ", "start": 2220.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2237.54, "text": "So literally while we're sitting here today, a million new touch enabled devices got into consumers' hands.", "start": 2230.7967441860465, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2241.66, "text": "Apple sells 97,000 iPhones per day.", "start": 2238.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2244.42, "text": "Android phones, 100,000 get activated per day.", "start": 2241.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2247.38, "text": "There's about 40,000 iPads sold per day.", "start": 2244.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2249.7, "text": "All of these are touch enabled devices.", "start": 2247.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2257.5000000000005, "text": "So just between those three vendors, right, you're talking about 250,000 touch enabled devices that made it into people's hands today.", "start": 2250.0200000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2261.3, "text": "And they're using those things to get on the web.", "start": 2258.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2277.3, "text": "So if you have an interface for your website that doesn't take touch gestures, touch target sizes into account and is really heavily reliant on mouse and click interactions, that's 250,000 people today that when they go to your website could potentially have a really crappy experience.", "start": 2261.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2279.9, "text": "And tomorrow that's 500,000.", "start": 2277.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2283.2200000000003, "text": "And by the end of the week, you know, the numbers start adding up.", "start": 2279.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2293.1000000000004, "text": "So I think designing for touch is really important because these touch platforms are really taking off.", "start": 2284.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2300.1800000000003, "text": "I mean, Apple has one, Microsoft has Windows, Windows Phone, Google's got stuff with their tablet going on and with Android.", "start": 2293.1000000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2308.86, "text": "Nokia has one, even Ubuntu recently released touch based guidelines for how they're operating system supports multi-touch.", "start": 2300.2200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2317.1, "text": "RIM, Research in Motion that makes blackberries, these guys sell, you know, 100,000 blackberries per day.", "start": 2309.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2322.98, "text": "They're in their new operating system 6.0, they're supporting multi-touch.", "start": 2318.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2326.46, "text": "Luke, I've got a question for you coming in from the chat room.", "start": 2323.78, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2338.9, "text": "They ask, when we design experience for devices with lots of capabilities like touch, you know, CSS3, they're basically saying, when should we stop worrying about older devices?", "start": 2328.26, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2348.06, "text": "When should we start focusing on the newer generation of devices, the touch enabled devices as opposed to older mobile browsers?", "start": 2338.9, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2356.54, "text": "Yeah, so this is a topic which I'm going to kind of put in a little plug for Event Apart at Jeffrey's fantastic conference Event Apart.", "start": 2348.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2361.1, "text": "There's kind of two schools of thought that come, and Eric, sorry.", "start": 2356.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2365.9, "text": "Eric's not here, but I nod to him in a gestural bow.", "start": 2362.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2367.66, "text": "I bow in his direction.", "start": 2366.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2369.2599999999998, "text": "I bow in his general direction.", "start": 2367.94, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2376.34, "text": "So there's folks like Andy Clark who are saying, design for the best experience first, right?", "start": 2369.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2379.2599999999998, "text": "Focus on making things as great as humanly possible.", "start": 2376.34, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2387.46, "text": "Take advantage of all the capabilities and force basically vendors and users and people to come to the better experiences because they're so much better.", "start": 2379.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2399.54, "text": "Then there's another class of folks that say, well, you know, design the base experience first and then progressively enhance that basic experience for people that have these new capabilities.", "start": 2388.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2409.86, "text": "So Dan Cederholm talks about CSS3 in that kind of way where he says, you know, have the CSS3 things be rewards for people that have capable enough devices that can use it.", "start": 2399.54, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2410.82, "text": "Right.", "start": 2410.58, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2412.1, "text": "So one is a champion approach.", "start": 2410.86, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2412.9, "text": "Right.", "start": 2412.7, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2414.38, "text": "So one's kind of a bottom-up approach.", "start": 2412.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2415.98, "text": "Another one's kind of a top-down approach.", "start": 2414.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2420.86, "text": "I personally think you can go either way and you'll end up in the same place.", "start": 2416.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2424.14, "text": "If you go from the top or if you go from the bottom, you'll basically get to the same", "start": 2421.06, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2424.5, "text": "place.", "start": 2424.14, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2427.98, "text": "You'll have something that either degrades well or something that enhances well.", "start": 2424.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2429.86, "text": "And kind of it's the same thing.", "start": 2427.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2434.2999999999997, "text": "It's a philosophical difference and a working style difference.", "start": 2429.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2437.14, "text": "It's a mindset difference, but it's, yeah, I agree.", "start": 2434.7, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2452.62, "text": "You know, if you're good at what you're doing and if you care about all your users, you're going to have a site that, you know, is amazing in WebKit and Firefox and Opera and is just fine and dandy in an older device or in the IE6, you know.", "start": 2437.2999999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2455.18, "text": "Or you say screw it to some of that stuff.", "start": 2453.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2471.4600000000005, "text": "I mean, this is where I've sort of had a little bit of a flare-up with people that have been doing mobile design for a while because I've seen Yahoo go through the processes and the pain that it takes to go and build for feature phones and build web experiences for feature phones.", "start": 2455.18, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2473.0600000000004, "text": "And I just flat out say it's not worth it.", "start": 2471.4600000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2487.0600000000004, "text": "People use feature phones so rarely, they use, I'm sorry, not feature phones, they so rarely browse the web in big quantities on feature phones and the process of doing so is so painful and the carriers have the decks locked up.", "start": 2474.1800000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2489.6600000000003, "text": "So you have to really fight through to get people to there.", "start": 2487.0600000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2495.94, "text": "That all that effort for such little return in terms of user engagement, I just don't think it's worth it.", "start": 2490.2200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2503.18, "text": "And granted, there's hundreds of millions if not billions more cell phones out there like feature phones than there are smart phones.", "start": 2496.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2509.42, "text": "But that trend is going the opposite direction that we're going to get to more smart phones than feature phones.", "start": 2503.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2513.9, "text": "I'm just going to support your experience, support you with like an anecdote.", "start": 2509.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2519.06, "text": "Like I had a flip open phone and I never used it for browsing the web because what would be the point?", "start": 2513.9, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2522.34, "text": "Why would I want to see HTML small, right?", "start": 2519.58, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2529.06, "text": "I know there were people using WAP and doing all kinds of proprietary stuff, but none of that mattered to me.", "start": 2523.1000000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2531.78, "text": "If I wanted the web, I would go to my browser and this was the old days.", "start": 2529.1000000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2535.7400000000002, "text": "And then I saw the smart phone that changed my life was the iPhone.", "start": 2531.78, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2539.06, "text": "I saw the iPhone in my friend's hand and I was like, wow, that's what I want.", "start": 2535.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2549.02, "text": "And I think a lot of people have that experience, have the experience of, I have friends that have crappy phones because that's all they could afford or something.", "start": 2539.86, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2551.38, "text": "And they don't use them for the web.", "start": 2549.02, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2555.26, "text": "They use them for text messaging their friends and say, I'll be right there.", "start": 2551.38, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2556.46, "text": "What are you doing tonight?", "start": 2555.26, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2557.94, "text": "Can I come over?", "start": 2556.86, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2559.02, "text": "Oh, come on, really?", "start": 2558.2200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2560.1, "text": "Can I come over now?", "start": 2559.02, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2560.78, "text": "You know, that stuff.", "start": 2560.1800000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2561.5, "text": "They use it for that.", "start": 2560.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2564.38, "text": "And that's what that stuff's for.", "start": 2563.02, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2568.1, "text": "And then if you have an iPhone, you almost don't use it for a phone call.", "start": 2564.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2572.94, "text": "In fact, sometimes you think you should never use it for a phone call, but that's another topic.", "start": 2568.1, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2576.2200000000003, "text": "Yeah, that is another topic.", "start": 2575.2200000000003, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2581.82, "text": "Yeah, so I, you know, I'm one of those people that say if the usage isn't there, don't support it. ", "start": 2576.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2582.0600000000004, "text": "Right.", "start": 2581.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2590.7000000000003, "text": "So IE6, if people that use IE6 probably aren't really using very robust web applications just because they flat out can't.", "start": 2582.0600000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2602.5800000000004, "text": "So why am I going to kill myself to have my really interactive, you know, I want to put complex in quotes, web application work in IE6 when people aren't even using it there?", "start": 2590.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2603.78, "text": "Maybe they get this baseline.", "start": 2602.5800000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2613.94, "text": "And I think Andy Clark reference again, has this style sheet markup where he gives IE6 users just like nice typographical layout on white text and that's it.", "start": 2603.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2614.7400000000002, "text": "Right.", "start": 2614.5400000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2615.1000000000004, "text": "Right.", "start": 2614.82, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2618.7400000000002, "text": "So they can read content, but they can't really do much else on there.", "start": 2615.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2619.0600000000004, "text": "He does.", "start": 2618.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2622.6600000000003, "text": "He gives them what I often add, do on a site anyway.", "start": 2619.5, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2625.6600000000003, "text": "Like, you know, I really like Roger Ebert's movie reviews.", "start": 2622.6600000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2626.5800000000004, "text": "I like Roger Ebert.", "start": 2625.7000000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2631.02, "text": "I think he's an amazing guy and I love his writing, but I can't look at it on the website.", "start": 2626.6200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2632.5, "text": "You know, that website's horrible.", "start": 2631.0600000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2642.82, "text": "So, and you know, on any, even on a browser, I'll go ahead and use, I will use readability, the readability plugin, right?", "start": 2632.5, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2652.3, "text": "To create a layout, a look and feel that's very much like the iBook reader or like the Kindle.", "start": 2643.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2662.5400000000004, "text": "You know, there's some nice basic default font, nice margins, you know, good space between paragraphs, good, you know, good headings.", "start": 2653.18, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2668.4600000000005, "text": "And that's the way a lot of web content, you know, if it's badly designed, then you just want to take away the design anyway.", "start": 2662.5400000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2669.0600000000004, "text": "Right.", "start": 2668.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2670.86, "text": "So, yeah.", "start": 2669.1000000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2674.38, "text": "I found myself actually doing that recently with Instapaper.", "start": 2671.0200000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2677.7400000000002, "text": "I don't know if you guys are familiar with that tool, but I'll be on the web.", "start": 2674.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2679.38, "text": "I'll see a bunch of interesting articles.", "start": 2677.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2680.5800000000004, "text": "I'll just say save, save, save.", "start": 2679.38, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2693.98, "text": "And then later on at night on the couch, I'll pull up the Instapaper iPad app and just have this really nice reading experience where all the clutter and the gunk and all the stuff around the content is gone and it's just a really nice legible layout for", "start": 2680.5800000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2694.22, "text": "that.", "start": 2693.98, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2699.2599999999998, "text": "And I find myself reading a lot more and engaging if content in a totally different", "start": 2694.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2699.66, "text": "way, right?", "start": 2699.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2703.98, "text": "I actually read it like I read a book instead of reading it how I read a web page.", "start": 2699.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2708.38, "text": "The web page, let's kind of scan through it, get out and get out of there because there's all this stuff yelling at me.", "start": 2704.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2714.14, "text": "When I'm reading the Instapaper version of that same web page, I'll just kind of relax on the couch, read it a bit more thoughtfully.", "start": 2708.7799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2718.98, "text": "And it's interesting how, I guess it's not interesting, it's sort of a duh, right?", "start": 2714.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2720.78, "text": "But the medium totally changes the message.", "start": 2718.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2731.38, "text": "Yeah, we were just, we're working on a design now and Tim Murtaugh just created the print style sheet, right?", "start": 2721.38, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2737.94, "text": "And we were looking at the print style sheet for the same website and Prince said, you know, if I had my way, this would be the premium site.", "start": 2731.7, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2739.26, "text": "This is what the site would look like.", "start": 2737.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2740.7, "text": "And it was right.", "start": 2739.9, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2743.3, "text": "I mean, you can't have the site without all that stuff.", "start": 2740.7, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2745.62, "text": "They need the ads, you know, for revenue.", "start": 2743.3, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2746.94, "text": "They need the nav bars.", "start": 2745.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2748.02, "text": "They need all that stuff.", "start": 2746.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2755.34, "text": "But in a perfect world, you know, in a perfect world, you'd actually be able to focus on the web content and not be distracted.", "start": 2748.3, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2764.18, "text": "So again, this is something that we've been simulating for ourselves on our desktops with readability or Instapaper.", "start": 2755.34, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2772.2599999999998, "text": "And I think mobile, again, your subject, mobile, is building a liking for that.", "start": 2764.58, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2803.58, "text": "And it's funny because when the web started, it was all about the content, and I think, you know, and obviously you can have very interactive experiences in mobile too, and not to denigrate web apps or anything like that, but when it is about content and you're constantly being distracted by like having to slap the monkey and dancing real estate brokers or whatever that stuff is, if you can just get rid of that stuff and, you know, sure you see it once while you're loading the page into Instapaper, so the advertiser is satisfied.", "start": 2772.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2808.7, "text": "The advertiser has had their view, but afterwards, it's really about reading, you know, because that...", "start": 2803.9, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2814.34, "text": "And I do think user or customer sort of demand will change this.", "start": 2809.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2817.34, "text": "So I'll give you one anecdote that I have on.", "start": 2814.34, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2822.66, "text": "We're in this stealth startup, so we've been looking around at domain names, which means we've been using GoDaddy a lot.", "start": 2817.8199999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2828.02, "text": "And those of you that have ever bought a domain name on GoDaddy know that that checkout process is awful.", "start": 2823.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2828.7799999999997, "text": "Yeah, it's the worst.", "start": 2828.18, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2830.5, "text": "It's the absolute worst.", "start": 2828.7799999999997, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2831.22, "text": "It's the worst.", "start": 2830.62, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2832.38, "text": "Try the mobile version.", "start": 2831.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2835.06, "text": "The mobile version is so much better.", "start": 2832.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2841.38, "text": "They have like a iPhone optimized app and they've cut the checkout thing down to like a single screen or two.", "start": 2835.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2847.2200000000003, "text": "So we, inside the web browser, go to the mobile version because it's such a better checkout experience.", "start": 2841.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2848.42, "text": "I use the mobile version.", "start": 2847.54, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2848.94, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2848.6600000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2850.1, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2849.9, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2852.62, "text": "So customers will start demanding that, right?", "start": 2850.58, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2858.86, "text": "And I think ultimately, businesses will have to acknowledge that this is what customers want and we need to give people what they want.", "start": 2852.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2860.34, "text": "Otherwise, they're going to go somewhere else for it.", "start": 2858.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2875.54, "text": "So Luke, what's your take on the new app that like, for example, the kinds of apps that that are coming out now, like the new Wired app that Adobe was sort of behind that they powered, the 500 meg, tons and tons of stacks of ads philosophy.", "start": 2860.42, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2876.7400000000002, "text": "What do you think of that?", "start": 2875.54, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2878.1000000000004, "text": "Is that the future?", "start": 2876.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2880.1400000000003, "text": "Does that go in the opposite direction?", "start": 2878.1000000000004, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2884.6600000000003, "text": "I think the form factor for consuming content is the future.", "start": 2880.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2889.1000000000004, "text": "I think a lot of these early app attempts at content apps are just flat out crappy.", "start": 2884.7000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2893.06, "text": "So, I mean, the thing about the Wired app, right, the text is an image.", "start": 2889.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2896.54, "text": "You can't even highlight and copy the text or share it.", "start": 2893.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2903.5, "text": "It's, you know, it's 500 meg, it's essentially like a gigantic CD-ROM file or something, right?", "start": 2897.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2916.06, "text": "So I applaud their attempt at creating, because, I guess, let me back up a second, I actually read Wired, the print magazine, and I have a subscription to them, $12 for 12 issues.", "start": 2905.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2924.2599999999998, "text": "I would absolutely love to have those magazines on my iPad, so I can only drag around one thing, you know, when I'm on the plane, and I would read that content,", "start": 2916.7799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2924.54, "text": "right?", "start": 2924.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2928.14, "text": "I'm totally fine if they have some ads in there, I would highly engage with it.", "start": 2924.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2933.22, "text": "But I'm not going to pay $5 for a 500 gigabyte version of one of their", "start": 2928.58, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2933.62, "text": "magazines.", "start": 2933.22, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2935.14, "text": "They made it worse, right?", "start": 2933.62, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2935.62, "text": "Right.", "start": 2935.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2936.18, "text": "Not better.", "start": 2935.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2941.38, "text": "And so it's the struggle, because people don't know what they're doing yet.", "start": 2937.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2950.7, "text": "It's still pretty early, but there's a lot of potential there, and they see the potential, and they don't know how to optimize for that new medium.", "start": 2941.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2955.06, "text": "I think something like Instapaper actually does optimize for that new medium,", "start": 2950.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2955.22, "text": "right?", "start": 2955.06, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2966.42, "text": "Because it essentially takes web content and turns it into like an e-book format, which, you know, look at how many people use the Kindle to read books, and I don't know what the stats are on iBooks recently, but I think they've been pretty", "start": 2955.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2966.66, "text": "good.", "start": 2966.42, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2975.9, "text": "So they take this form factor that actually works on a tablet-based device and apply web content to it, and it's much more engaging, and you actually like using", "start": 2967.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2976.02, "text": "it.", "start": 2975.9, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2976.1, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2976.02, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2979.1800000000003, "text": "So these guys got to figure stuff out.", "start": 2977.6600000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2983.1, "text": "This isn't a, let's go back to the world of print, because now we have a digital screen.", "start": 2979.1800000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2991.38, "text": "Like, let's forget all the lessons that the web taught us for the past 15 years and go back to create, you know, what we were doing before, because we can again.", "start": 2983.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2995.1800000000003, "text": "I think that's the approach they're taking, and I think that's the wrong way to do it.", "start": 2991.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2997.98, "text": "Well, guys, it's been almost an hour.", "start": 2996.82, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2999.5, "text": "We've got to try and wrap this up.", "start": 2997.98, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3010.74, "text": "You know, Luke, I want to ask you, going forward, you know, what's your advice for the people who are thinking about how to create new content for these mobile devices, this new platform?", "start": 3000.06, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3015.18, "text": "What should people be thinking about as we move forward in this new space?", "start": 3010.74, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3026.02, "text": "Yeah, I think it boils down to the same sort of stuff that we were talking about before, you know, understand the natural constraints that come with that form factor and embrace them.", "start": 3015.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3028.18, "text": "Make them part of your design process.", "start": 3026.18, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3034.4199999999996, "text": "Don't fight against them and don't try and cram, you know, constraints from some other sort of medium that you know really well into here.", "start": 3028.18, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3044.98, "text": "And then the other part is, you know, take a deep dive into what the new capabilities are in there and try and understand how you can use those to innovate and to make things better.", "start": 3034.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3057.14, "text": "If you understand the opportunities and the limitations, which is literally the constraints and the capabilities, then I think you can tune things to be pretty optimized for any kind of form factor that you encounter.", "start": 3044.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3060.98, "text": "Well, Luke, thanks so much for being on the show.", "start": 3059.18, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3062.54, "text": "Guys, we'll see you all again next week.", "start": 3061.02, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3063.3799999999997, "text": "Bye bye.", "start": 3062.8999999999996, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 3065.02, "text": "Thanks, everyone.", "start": 3064.22, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3065.5, "text": "Bye bye.", "start": 3065.14, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 3072.18, "text": "Thanks again to my co-host, Jeffrey Zeldman, and to our guest, Luke Reblewski of LukeW.com.", "start": 3066.98, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3076.14, "text": "Thanks also to our sponsor MailChimp.com for making this show possible.", "start": 3072.8999999999996, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3078.06, "text": "And thanks to you for listening.", "start": 3076.8199999999997, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3083.1, "text": "You can find out more about this and all of our other shows by visiting 5by5.tv.", "start": 3078.7799999999997, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3086.7, "text": "And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating the show on iTunes.", "start": 3083.3399999999997, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3089.4600000000005, "text": "It's the best way to help new listeners find out about the show.", "start": 3086.9, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3092.42, "text": "This is Dan Benjamin for The Big Web Show.", "start": 3090.5000000000005, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3093.7400000000002, "text": "See you again next week.", "start": 3092.86, "speaker": "Person 2"}], "transcriptBySpeakers": [{"end": 14.316923076923077, "text": "This is Episode 6 of The Big Web Show, a live talk show about the web and the future of web publishing. I'm Dan Benjamin, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Jeffrey Zeldman. Hey, Jeffrey.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 15.355714285714285, "text": "Hey, Dan. How are you doing?", "start": 15.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 40.36115744680851, "text": "The Big Web Show is sponsored by MailChimp, powerful email marketing. MailChimp serves more than 300,000 users and 20 million emails daily, and their template language makes it dead simple to code HTML emails that give your clients the ability to adjust colors, fonts, and more without breaking layout or having to mess with your code. Sign up free and see why everyone's switching to MailChimp.com. Jeffrey, perhaps you could introduce our guest.", "start": 17.04, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 164.29925925925926, "text": "I would be delighted. Our guest today is Luke Wroblewski, a guy who makes decisions that affect hundreds, that affect hundreds of millions of people. He is an internationally recognized digital product design leader. He's the author of Web Form Design, which sounds boring, but is anything but. I've read the book many times, and I've seen Luke talk about forms. If you're a web designer, watching Luke talk about forms is better than Adam Sandler. It's just really funny and human and warm and enlightening. He's just an amazing guy. About his book, Communication Arts, which usually doesn't dirty its hands by talking about web stuff, they called his book, that rare book capable of transforming the way an entire field does its business. I like that phrase, does its business, but I think they meant it in a... Anyway, differently than I... Anyway. He was the design lead at Yahoo. He was the actually chief design architect at Yahoo. I can't even imagine doing a job like that. Chief design architect. He could do things like send a nav on the right-hand side to a million people. I mean, I'm sorry, to 100 million people, send one on the left side to another 100 million people, and then see how it did and draw inferences about how people use web pages and how design works on the web. Before that, he was the lead user interface design of eBay's platform team. I guess he was always a lead something. I don't think he ever started as a... He was never a punk. He just like, I don't know, he just left high school and started being the lead something. He currently has left Yahoo and is currently the chief design officer and co-founder of a stealth startup, and I guess we can't talk about that or what it does or where it's located.", "start": 44.120000000000005, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 166.61454545454546, "text": "Hush, hush.", "start": 166.32, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 168.43661176470587, "text": "Hush, hush. Okay.", "start": 168.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 170.67347532467534, "text": "Nothing to break on this show? Nothing you're willing to announce here first?", "start": 170.44, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 174.87044, "text": "I'd have to virtually kill the audience.", "start": 174.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 177.80363636363637, "text": "It's a Facebook privacy tool, I believe. No?", "start": 177.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 181.64, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 181.44, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 182.49882352941177, "text": "I'm just fishing.", "start": 182.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 183.9009641025641, "text": "You're close. It's just a fishing tool.", "start": 183.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 220.44, "text": "It's a fishing tool. Very good. Okay, and the reason... We're going to talk to Luke about many things, cabbages and kings, but the reason we have him here with us today in particular is to discuss mobile web design and generally discuss design being informed by mobile design. In other words, well, how would you say this, Luke? Typically we do mobile design as kind of an add-on at the end, right? Like, oh, they wanted a mobile site too. What can we leave off? That kind of thing? Yeah.", "start": 187.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 221.29000000000002, "text": "You're suggesting...", "start": 221.24, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 226.15368421052634, "text": "The opposite. Yeah. I'm suggesting the opposite. How does that work?", "start": 222.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 268.82912, "text": "Sure. So as you mentioned, the way we usually go building web services is we'll go build kind of the desktop PC version up front and start building in the capabilities and the limitations of that system. And then afterwards we might say, oh, hey, can we create a mobile version of this? Can we kind of port some of these features over and create a quote-unquote mobile version? But I think increasingly that's becoming kind of a backwards way of doing things because of the way mobile is growing. And it's really kind of outrageous the way it's growing. I believe the mobile web is growing eight times faster than the desktop web grew. So back in the heyday of AOL, things are going eight times faster now in the mobile space.", "start": 228.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 303.4477922077922, "text": "That's amazing just in itself because I've just been reviewing how fast the web grew. It went from like 3 million users in 95 to like 100 million users in 97. And that's exponential. It doesn't even cover it. That's amazing. And it went from like 240 hosts in 1994 to like we have millions now, uncountable. They're all porn, but we have millions. So therefore they are countable. And you're saying it's faster than that? Mobile adoption is faster than that?", "start": 270.88, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 313.48055555555555, "text": "Yeah. It's outpacing by eight times. If you look at heavy mobile data users, we're looking at one billion people within the next two years using heavy mobile data.", "start": 307.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 320.76153846153846, "text": "That's all over the world?", "start": 319.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 330.9804081632653, "text": "Yeah. Yes, sir. I've got a number of little data things I can kind of pull up here if you guys are interested in hearing in more depth.", "start": 324.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 403.5603612903226, "text": "Yeah, I think that'd be pretty cool to hear that. I think one of the things that obviously is making a big impact in this is the popularity of devices. Really all of the mobile devices that we have now, but especially things like the iPad, the iPhone, we always sort of talk about those devices. And people are probably sick and tired of hearing about them already. But you have to look at the impact that they're having, especially in the kind of work that we do in the web sphere. The fact that for so long, we were focused on just getting the data out there. And then it was, well, how do we get it out there to these other browsers with a consistent experience? And now it's, how do we get it to these entirely new generation of platforms? What changes though? And while you're pulling those figures up, maybe we can think about this and talk about this for a second. What changes in the mentality of the designer? And this is something that Jeffrey, I wanted to talk to you about on the show. Does your mentality and focus in the way that you go about designing change or should it change when you think about these other platforms? Are you still concerned with designing a consistent experience for an iPad or an iPhone as the experience that you're designing for a web browser or has that changed along with it?", "start": 331.96, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 451.7638095238096, "text": "Yeah. We think about it all the time. I think it's really, the big difference is with phones, I think, because you've got a much smaller screen. And I think that's what Luke's talking about mainly, as we'll find out when we actually listen to Luke. But yeah, I mean, with the iPad, we haven't done any iPad apps yet. And I think of the iPad as just a nice delivery system for a website, right? It's the same. You lose hover, but you gain touch and maybe there's some ways we can start incorporating some of that into our website designs, which again is something I'd like to hear more about from Luke. But yeah, I think you have to, yeah. Go ahead and give us some stats.", "start": 409.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 524.2375510204082, "text": "Sure. Well, let's go to the stats for a second and then I'll answer that question. You kind of mentioned the iPhone growth. Basically, AT&T's mobile data traffic in the past three years has increased 50 times. So they saw a 4,932% increase starting on June 29th, 2007. And there was releases in July 2008, June 2009 of additional iPhones. And so them kind of being the, I guess you could say furthest along in terms of heavy data usage. There's a study released by Cisco not too long ago that showed the average iPhone user uses about 30 times as much mobile traffic as a feature phone user. And as you start seeing more and more devices that are connected to these networks that have a good web browsing experience, I think you'll see comparable numbers in the Android space and who knows what HP is going to do with a web OS. I was actually just reading an article where the CEO of HP was saying, well, we didn't buy Palm for the smartphones. We bought it for their web operating system, which we want to put on all of the mobile devices that we have out there that are connected to the network.", "start": 454.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 526.888019047619, "text": "Does that surprise you, them coming out and saying that? Was that a surprise to you?", "start": 526.52, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 553.9946962962964, "text": "I think it's sort of a semantic thing, right? Is it a smartphone? Is it a mobile computer? Is it a, I don't know. I imagine they're going to have different form factors for computing devices and there's going to be mobile form factors and they're going to be connected to the network, so call it what you will. If it's small enough and it makes calls, maybe it's a smartphone, maybe it's a mobile computer.", "start": 532.0799999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 592.3404972972974, "text": "And I wonder if it is semantics. Here's the quote that you're referring to. It's by HP CEO Mark Hurd. He says, we didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. He goes on to say that doesn't in any way make sense. And he says, and I tell people that, but it doesn't seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The web OS is one of the two ground up pieces of software that's built as a web operating environment. And he goes on to say that he has tens of millions of small form factor web connected devices. I mean, do you expect that these are the kinds of devices, Luke, that we're going to need to think about deploying websites to?", "start": 557.32, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 672.758372413793, "text": "Yeah. Well, let me back up half a second. I think the reason why people question him when he says we're not getting in the smartphone business is smartphones are projected to be the past PCs in terms of sales next year. So it's a huge booming opportunity to have mobile computing network connected devices in people's hands. And the sales of that, if other regions or any indicator are going to blow up and have been blowing up. But when you look at what they consider to be kind of a mobile connected device, the research a lot of people look at comes from Mary Meeker over on Morgan Stanley Research. And she has this presentation, which I can dig up for you guys, but it's around kind of mobile, the next big technology growth. And essentially what they say is, you know, PCs were sort of 10 times the mini computer market. Desktop internet computers was basically 10 times the PC market. And mobile is going to be 10 times the size of the desktop internet market. And in mobile, when they talk about 10 billion plus devices, they're talking about tablets, smart connected MP3 players, cell phones, smartphones, wireless home appliances, things like the Kindle, mobile video devices. There's a wide range of things. And I honestly think anything that can have a screen is probably going to be connected to the network in some way at some point. Just because, you know, why not, right?", "start": 594.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 720.2651612903226, "text": "Sure, it should be. At some point, it's not unrealistic to assume that the shower, you know, that your shower or your water heater could have a little screen and that when you're away, you know, you'd be able to tell if your water heater, if you need to like have someone come in and adjust your water heater or something like that. There's no reason for, you know, if you've read the book Everywhere by, wow, by Adam Greenfield, the great Adam Greenfield, it pretty much talks about that kind of world. And he's not necessarily a fan of that kind of world, but that's the world we're moving to. And there's no reason for everything not to be on the network. I guess bandwidth is a consideration. Do mobile devices, but they're using a whole different bandwidth, right?", "start": 676.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 740.9416666666666, "text": "Well, it depends on how they connect, right? But if they're on 3G, then they're using different stuff than when they're connected through Wi-Fi or 4G. Really depends on what they have. FedEx guy just showed up at my door and he went away. Okay. Speaking of a whole different network.", "start": 723.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 778.8703024390244, "text": "Luke, do you anticipate though, that all of these devices, I mean, you just, you bring this up by saying 3G, I mean, obviously there's going to be an evolution of the kind of connectivity that these devices have. And, you know, we've seen multiple, multiple next generations of Wi-Fi, for example, just over the last few years, we consistently see 3G, 4G and onward. I know this kind of gets into the technical side of the house, but do those speeds and the changing of those speeds play a lot into how we think of designing that experience for these kinds of devices? Are we still waiting for things to get faster? What's sort of the limitation that you see right now?", "start": 741.9, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 796.0014481012659, "text": "I wouldn't wait for things to get faster just because everybody's for years have been, oh, as soon as we have broadband, right, we can deliver rich media experiences. Okay, that's great. But then while you're waiting for broadband, all of a sudden mobile exploded and you had limitations of 3G, right? So there goes your rich media experience.", "start": 782.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 826.8788235294118, "text": "I love the way Jeremy Keith defines rich media experience as a connection between people. So that reading your friend's comment on Twitter and laughing or crying, you know, when something sad happens to your friend, that's a rich media experience. And how much bandwidth are we talking about? And that's an experience that can, you know, easily be transmitted on any mobile device, even not a smartphone, but kind of like, you know, phones from five years ago, right?", "start": 800.58, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 827.9109090909092, "text": "SMS, right?", "start": 827.82, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 828.8969230769231, "text": "Right, right.", "start": 828.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 873.299072, "text": "I mean, you can do that through text messaging. I think there's something like 4 billion text messages sent per day in the U.S. alone. So a lot of data and a lot of connections are being done there. And then, you know, also different regions in the world have different levels of bandwidth connectivity. Different devices will support different types of connectivity. My view is always try to optimize the heck out of what you're doing in terms of performance. Because even on the web, when you've got broadband connections, a couple of milliseconds here, a couple of milliseconds there, there's been a lot of studies that show they really negatively impact user experience. And I guarantee everybody tuning in on the phone or on the web or through the chat channel has had an experience where they're sitting and waiting for a page to load and they click back and they never get there.", "start": 829.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 875.7866666666666, "text": "Right.", "start": 875.62, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 888.5385939393939, "text": "And I think that's something that happens all the time. And we need to be very, very cognizant of it. So I don't wait for the day when bandwidth is going to be this holy grail that, oh my gosh, it works. I can send everything I want down the pipe. Maybe we'll get there at one point, but shouldn't wait for it.", "start": 876.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 919.5984615384616, "text": "It's the same reason Google wouldn't have rounded corners. Pre-CSS3, pre-support for rounded corners in Chrome and Safari and Opera and Firefox, before all that, they wouldn't have rounded corners because the hacks that were used to create the rounded corners added half a byte to a page and multiplied by the hundreds of millions of users they have every hour. That was unacceptable bandwidth loss. It would make a slight delay. This is for their apps.", "start": 891.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 955.4006950819672, "text": "Interestingly, if you look at all the major sites, they're all massively vigilant about performance. Even Facebook recently has been going to town. I think at the Velocity conference maybe this week or something, they said they boosted speeds again two times. And they're just vigilant, vigilant, vigilant about making things faster and faster. They released this Facebook Lite version and now they released this Facebook Zero version for mobile where they're trying to make the performance better and better so you can actually get your hands on the content instead of sitting there watching things spin.", "start": 927.58, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1051.0681333333332, "text": "I love using Facebook, the iPhone version of Facebook, on an iPad because it's all slimmed down and has the features I actually need. It's a mobile experience and that's what we're going to talk about. It's a mobile experience but it has the speed of the iPad's processor so I don't have to even wait. The guy, I forget his name, who did a brilliant job of shrinking Facebook and putting it on the iPhone, whether you then look at it on a more robust platform like the iPad, it's really a dream and it's really a lot of fun. I also know that Facebook hired Nicole Sullivan. She just recently completed a stint optimizing the CSS files for Facebook because I think they had something like 5,000 lines of code at one point. Because of the way Facebook's developed with lots of small teams in parallel, they're never going to have one clean style sheet with 100 rules in it. It's always going to be bigger than your site or mine, what we would like them to be. But they were able, by working with this expert, Nicole Sullivan, to shrink it on down quite a bit. Because all that stuff matters. It matters to their users. You can always go somewhere else. Maybe with Facebook you can't. But who knows? If someone came along offering the same features at less bandwidth and a cleaner interface, they could lose. They can't take their users for granted.", "start": 958.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1102.2419294117649, "text": "Well, that's kind of what they did to MySpace, right? If you look at one of the core differences between Facebook and MySpace, especially actually to back up even a second, one of the things that I think killed Friendster was the performance of it. Friendster was one of the first social networks and they had a lot of the features that ultimately MySpace and then Facebook had. But that thing was just the slowest, most painful to use product from a performance perspective and you heard gripes about it over and over and over again. I wanted to jump on one thing that you mentioned there around the smaller form factor of Facebook and how taking the time to design what your product experience is in a mobile environment really forces you to focus on the stuff that matters. And I think Joe Hewitt's the guy you're referring to that built the original iPhone.", "start": 1051.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1104.740123076923, "text": "Right, right. He built the first Facebook app, yeah.", "start": 1104.42, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 1195.06, "text": "And now that Facebook app kind of oscillates between it and the KoiPond app for it is number one in the Apple App Store. I think they're like in this heated competition of who's going to win. So when he went through and did that process, I had a quote from him that I like to reference because I think it kind of speaks to why I believe going mobile first is a good design approach. He says, my goal was initially just to make a mobile companion, but I became convinced it was possible to create a version of Facebook that was actually better than the website. And I think some of these natural constraints in mobile are there to help you create something that's better than the website. Essentially, with just even screen size, as Jeffrey mentioned that a little bit earlier, typically we're designing for 1024 by 768. If you look at an iPhone screen or the first generation of Android phones or the first Palm screens, you got 320 by 480 pixels. So you just lost 80 percent of your canvas, which means 80 percent of the space you had to throw links, buttons, images, pictures, tables, whatever the heck you had on that page is gone. And when you throw away 80 percent of the stuff you have on either a home page or a feature page or a content page or whatever, you have to determine what stays. And the things that stay should be the most important things. And the most important things should be the things that get your users what they want and help drive your business.", "start": 1108.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1270.35248, "text": "You're touching on the core of design, what design really is. And people always talk about, you know, the design's finished when there's nothing else you can remove from it. It's very easy to make something look to be a certain kind of designer, to be a decorator. It's very easy. Well, it's not easy. It takes a lot of talent and skill. But it's possible to develop Photoshop, you know, Photoshop abilities. It's possible to have a good eye and know how to make something look pretty by putting lots of textures and gradations and curves and shapes and all this kind of stuff that doesn't really need to be there and make a really nice looking web page. But is that necessarily good design? Most people think of design, a lot of people think of design as that, that aspect of it. And that's really, to me, that's always a secondary thing of what being a designer is. That, you know, for a while that may be all you can do. And it's great that you're getting those Photoshop skills. You certainly need them. But really design is problem solving. And so focusing on what the user needs, focusing on, you know, a content strategy and a brand strategy and delivering those. Every website, whether mobile or not, should do that. But I know you've seen lots of examples, and we all have, where there's so much going on on a page, I don't even know what, you know, where to throw up first. I mean, it's just...", "start": 1196.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1271.7818526315789, "text": "Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it.", "start": 1271.62, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 1312.0461333333333, "text": "Well, it's a gluttony of resources, right? When you have a lot, you use a lot. When you have constraints, you are forced to focus. And I actually think design is, I used to use this phrase a lot, design is the process of gradually applying constraints until an elegant solution remains. I can't remember who said it. Someone smarter than me said it. But that's always resonated with me, right? Like, okay, we have this business requirement, or our users need to do this. That's a constraint. Or we only got 320 by 480 pixels. That's a constraint. Just keep applying these constraints onto your idea until it is the right solution in that environment.", "start": 1274.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1432.2185066666668, "text": "When you find that phrase exactly as written, I would like to get that tattooed. That is the greatest thing. Another problem that we constantly encounter, I mean, we're lucky we have really smart clients and all that. But when you're working with people, working for people, there's always this, I guess it's a constraint in a different way. There's always the committee. There's always the group of people who, you know, the publisher really wants this, and the editor-in-chief really wants that. And the marketing people want this. And the advertising department says it's really important to leave room for all 700 different ad shapes that we might sell. And by the time you're done, you have a very rich page in a way because you have lots of content on it. But you also have a non-editorial, non-curated, kind of undesigned experience where the best you can do is try to guide eye tracking through the sea of stuff. I mean, it's even with a great client to sell them on constantly cutting stuff out and simplifying and saying, that doesn't have to be in a flyout on the nav. It's okay. People will find that if they want it. Here's how they'll find it. Or we can do that contextually, or we can save that for its own section. You know, it's very hard to sell a lean homepage, a lean landing page, all that stuff. But when you're doing mobile, which a lot of clients think of as an afterthought, suddenly a lot of those handcuffs come off. Suddenly you have more freedom, I think, to just say, look, we've only got, like you said, 300 square pixels. So something's got to go. What do we actually want people to do? I mean, can you talk about that a little more? Because I think initially we were talking about technological restrictions and bandwidth and things. And those are all very important. But I think what designing for mobile does in terms of strategy of user experience is really the key.", "start": 1313.1399999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1444.06864, "text": "I think you nailed it there. You have only so much space, so you have to prioritize. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard people kind of doing this backwards thing. So I gave a talk at LinkedIn about two weeks ago, and I was chatting with some of the guys", "start": 1434.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1449.4809454545455, "text": "over there.", "start": 1449.46, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 1468.3325265822784, "text": "And he said, oh, you know, we understand where you're going with this mobile-first thing because we've been iterating on this iPhone app. And recently our CEO has been, you know, I love the simplicity of this iPhone app. Why the hell doesn't our website work like this? And I keep hearing that sentiment more and more now where people have an experience on either an Android device or an iPhone device or even the iPad or what have you.", "start": 1449.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1528.123446153846, "text": "It sounds like what you're saying is if you can get mobile on the front burner in an early meeting with your client or your in-house client, if you work in-house, then you could actually use that as a sales tool to bring back to the committee or to bring back to the group of 5,000 stakeholders that all want their thing on the home page and say, you know, guys, we were all agreeing what a great experience the mobile is. If we want to have that same experience on the website, if we want our users to have that experience, then we're going to have to trim. Or is it a function that people want what's on the mobile and they'd love, in theory, they'd love their website to behave that way. But once you give them a 1024 wide screen, they just, you know, it's like, I'd like to live a spiritual life, but if you put a million dollars in my bank account, I'm going to spend it. Is it like that?", "start": 1473.1000000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1691.1, "text": "Yeah, they can't help themselves. Well, I do think you can sell. So here's the process I would go through. I think you can sell people on doing mobile first because of this huge opportunity, right? Because there's going to be more smartphones sold than PCs next year because the mobile web is growing eight times faster. You can throw a whole bunch of numbers at people who are very business focused and who are kind of revenue driven and opportunity driven to say, this is something that's really important. We should focus on it first rather than secondarily. So once you kind of hit that roadblock and like I said, there's tons of information and data out there that supports this case. Once you kind of sell that, then you say, OK, well, here we are designing the mobile site and we have really limited space. We have limited speed. People are using touched interaction. So we have to simplify things. We can't use hovers. We have to be focused on performance. And ta-da, here comes this very focused design. Now when it comes time to go do the web design, let's not lose that focus, right? Let's not forget the fact that we spent X amount of time prioritizing what's most important for our customers and for our business and laying it out appropriately. Let's take those learnings and let's take that process and apply it to the desktop so we have that same kind of laser focus there. But frankly, the way people use the web is not that different from the way they use mobile, right? They're very in and out. Most page views are under 10 seconds. I think the mean and the study that I cite sometimes is a two to three seconds per page. So one, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand done. You have to be focused in that kind of environment because you have to get a key message across to people. You have to explain to them what they can do there, how they can do it really, really darn quickly and without focus, with a whole bunch of gibberish on the page and, you know, like kind of UI, I don't know, UI debris and content crap or whatever you want to call it. Fluffy stuff that they throw on there. It's very hard to communicate. Yeah. Chart junk, you know, UI debris, what have you. A lot of that stuff is very unnecessary. So working from mobile backwards gives you that focus. And hopefully you've sold people on that prioritization exercise and you've sold them on. This is what has to be on that initial screen and on this key screen and on this series of actions. And then, you know, don't let go of that. Right. Hold on tight to that. There is a quote inside of the iPad user interface guidelines, which says you should not view the large iPad screen as an invitation to bring back all the functionality you pruned from your iPhone application. Which I think is really spot on.", "start": 1529.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1701.207396491228, "text": "So use it instead just to. What would you use that extra space for? What does Apple think you should use the extra space for?", "start": 1695.5, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1807.9076845070424, "text": "Well, I think they should use the extra space for making those experiences much more immersive and rich. Right. So, like, let's say you're building a video player right now, you've got this full canvas to display the content. Or let's say you're working through like Twitter. Right. Instead of making everything super tiny fonts in that list of updates, you can make things a little bit bigger now. Maybe you can allow people to actually see more than one action in the UI. But that doesn't remove the core focus of here's the stream of updates that I'm looking at and they're organized in such and such way because those are the pieces of content that I care about. Like when Flickr built their mobile app, they went from 60 plus things in their menu to this. Those of you that have been to m.flickr.com, they have these four blue bars at the top. Recent activity, uploads from your contacts, today's interestingness and photos near you. Yep. So they nailed what people actually do on Flickr. And if you watch people use Flickr, they look at what the activity is on their stream. Has anybody commented on my photos? Has anybody favorited my photos? Has anything happened in a pool or group I'm in? So they really care about this update stream. They want to see what their contacts are sharing in terms of pictures. And then if they're kind of bored and want to kill some time or just see some beautiful photography, they want to see what's interesting. And so those are these like three core use cases. When you bring those to the iPad, I think you just have an opportunity to make that more immersive and more directly engaging. So you can imagine the difference between interestingness photos on the iPhone versus the iPad, right? The iPad has a very beautiful photography experience. Take advantage of the whole screen and really let that stuff stand out.", "start": 1704.0600000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1984.6508923076924, "text": "I love what you're saying about simplifying the user experience and then just letting it be richer on a bigger device because that device is more immersive. Some other things that I really like about the mobile focus, the mobile explosion, the fact that your client may be using an old version of Internet Explorer to look at the website, but they also have an Android or a Palm Pre or an iPhone in their pocket, probably an iPhone. And they know that that stuff can look really beautiful and type can look really beautiful. In a strange way, the superiority of the experience on mobile is doing a few things. It's getting people interested in type who weren't before. The focus on mobile has been really good for web standards because people are more open to the idea, for instance, that support for IE6 may mean a simplified style sheet for IE6 or fewer features on IE6 instead of pixel perfect sameness of experience on every device because they know that the site looks different on every device anyway because the client can now pick up an iPhone and look at it and knows that the experience is different because people have smartphones and they're going to mobile sites that are different, like m.flickr.com is different from Flickr. Because of that, there's more acceptance of not wasting a whole lot of energy trying to make every website look the same in every browser and device. There's more acceptance that the website can behave slightly differently. Let's say if there's a photo gallery, you can have a scroll bar that works really well in IE8 and in Chrome and in Safari and in Opera 10, but you can omit that from IE6 and not worry about it as long as people can still hit forward and back with buttons. They don't need to have the really pretty Ajax-y looking scroll bar and it's fine. It's fine. It's a different experience, but it's fine. I think people are getting into the notion that you can spend more time creating smart features and allowing each device to experience that feature as it experiences it and being less anal and less rigid and print-like in their... A few years ago, it was considered a badge of honor that your website would look the same in Netscape 4 and act exactly the same in Netscape 4, and that's how we have these really bloated sites, which don't scale well and aren't accessible and all the other problems we know that go with it. I think the focus on simplicity in mobile and the ubiquity of mobile is helping us in that struggle, too. It seems like it's much easier now to sell web standards and to sell the idea that every site doesn't have to look the same in every browser.", "start": 1812.54, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1987.228, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1987.22, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2127.8010947368425, "text": "And so I think you've hit on two really key points around how thinking about mobile first helps you with challenges we've had in the web design world for years, right? One is that everybody wants to add a whole bunch of crap to the page problem, and mobile helps you deal with that. Two, everybody wants the thing to look exactly the same across every browser, and the fact that there's a whole bunch of different types of form factors of devices connected to the network helps you with that problem because you can clearly illustrate, well, it shouldn't be the same because these are very different experiences, devices, use cases. And then the third thing, which you began to touch on, that I think mobile first helps you with is there's a bunch of capabilities in a lot of the newer mobile platforms that simply don't exist in a desktop and in the older browsers we have. So you started to touch on some of the things that we have with fonts in HTML5, quote unquote, capable browsers. On mobile, you know, Android's running WebKit, Apple's running WebKit, Palm's running WebKit, Nokia and RIM both made acquisitions in the space and are moving towards WebKit. And I think they even have beta releases or full releases of those browsers very recently. So you actually have a very capable browser across all these devices that can do CSS3, that can do AppCache, so it can store content locally, that can do video via HTML5, right, that can do Canvas, so you can actually render graphics in it using markup and script, that has the geolocation API so you can get access to where the device actually is. All those new capabilities give you a whole bunch of things to work from that you simply don't have when you're trying to design for the IE6 through IE9 world in the desktop. And because you have those new capabilities, you can innovate in really interesting ways. So what could we do with our website if we know the user's location right now? What could we do with our web presence if we could let people, you know, instantly update a photo, not plug in a camera, move it to the desktop, drag it in. But, you know, there's a camera embedded in the device, you click two buttons and there's a photo integrated with your web content. I think those capabilities, when they're available to you, make you think about the web in a whole different way, right, because you can do stuff that before was just very, very painful and very, very non-integrated.", "start": 1987.6200000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2176.7952, "text": "That's very exciting. I think also touch is a big deal. Touch makes you think about the interface differently, right? You're not basically presenting people with a text interface and buttons. Instead, you're presenting them with a photo, which, you know, on a device, I touch the photo, I pinch, I zoom, I push the photo to the side and expect that another photo will come up. So you have all kinds of different means of accessing content directly, right? I think that's a big part of it, too. And it kind of changes the way you think about design. Instead of like, here's some content in a box and buttons and what about touch? And how can we start thinking about the different touch capabilities and bringing them into our websites?", "start": 2130.6200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2215.2421066666666, "text": "Sure. So let me start by answering that question by saying I'm not going to get to, there's no way I'll get to all my thoughts on touch, but I have written them all out. So if you want to go to LukeW.com slash touch, you'll see a lot of resources for what I'm going to talk about here. The one thing about touch that I'll say at the top level is this thing is that this interface paradigm is really, really taking off like crazy. There was 1.03 million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009, right? So over a million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009. There's a hundred thousand Android phones activated per day.", "start": 2179.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2218.5451063829787, "text": "Stop. Say that. Let's say that first one again.", "start": 2218.46, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2318.7009945945947, "text": "A million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009, which is huge, right? So literally while we're sitting here today, a million new touch enabled devices got into consumers' hands. Apple sells 97,000 iPhones per day. Android phones, 100,000 get activated per day. There's about 40,000 iPads sold per day. All of these are touch enabled devices. So just between those three vendors, right, you're talking about 250,000 touch enabled devices that made it into people's hands today. And they're using those things to get on the web. So if you have an interface for your website that doesn't take touch gestures, touch target sizes into account and is really heavily reliant on mouse and click interactions, that's 250,000 people today that when they go to your website could potentially have a really crappy experience. And tomorrow that's 500,000. And by the end of the week, you know, the numbers start adding up. So I think designing for touch is really important because these touch platforms are really taking off. I mean, Apple has one, Microsoft has Windows, Windows Phone, Google's got stuff with their tablet going on and with Android. Nokia has one, even Ubuntu recently released touch based guidelines for how they're operating system supports multi-touch. RIM, Research in Motion that makes blackberries, these guys sell, you know, 100,000 blackberries per day. They're in their new operating system 6.0, they're supporting multi-touch.", "start": 2220.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2344.8552363636363, "text": "Luke, I've got a question for you coming in from the chat room. They ask, when we design experience for devices with lots of capabilities like touch, you know, CSS3, they're basically saying, when should we stop worrying about older devices? When should we start focusing on the newer generation of devices, the touch enabled devices as opposed to older mobile browsers?", "start": 2323.78, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2362.4804307692307, "text": "Yeah, so this is a topic which I'm going to kind of put in a little plug for Event Apart at Jeffrey's fantastic conference Event Apart. There's kind of two schools of thought that come, and Eric, sorry. Eric's not here, but I nod to him in a gestural bow.", "start": 2348.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2366.6670260869564, "text": "I bow in his direction.", "start": 2366.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2367.996206451613, "text": "I bow in his general direction.", "start": 2367.94, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2404.6902344827586, "text": "So there's folks like Andy Clark who are saying, design for the best experience first, right? Focus on making things as great as humanly possible. Take advantage of all the capabilities and force basically vendors and users and people to come to the better experiences because they're so much better. Then there's another class of folks that say, well, you know, design the base experience first and then progressively enhance that basic experience for people that have these new capabilities. So Dan Cederholm talks about CSS3 in that kind of way where he says, you know, have the CSS3 things be rewards for people that have capable enough devices that can use it.", "start": 2369.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2412.7066666666665, "text": "Right. So one is a champion approach. Right.", "start": 2410.58, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2421.171604705882, "text": "So one's kind of a bottom-up approach. Another one's kind of a top-down approach. I personally think you can go either way and you'll end up in the same place. If you go from the top or if you go from the bottom, you'll basically get to the same", "start": 2412.9, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2424.1616, "text": "place.", "start": 2424.14, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2430.1729142857143, "text": "You'll have something that either degrades well or something that enhances well. And kind of it's the same thing. It's a philosophical difference and a working style difference.", "start": 2424.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2446.9691428571427, "text": "It's a mindset difference, but it's, yeah, I agree. You know, if you're good at what you're doing and if you care about all your users, you're going to have a site that, you know, is amazing in WebKit and Firefox and Opera and is just fine and dandy in an older device or in the IE6, you know.", "start": 2434.7, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2508.4200592592592, "text": "Or you say screw it to some of that stuff. I mean, this is where I've sort of had a little bit of a flare-up with people that have been doing mobile design for a while because I've seen Yahoo go through the processes and the pain that it takes to go and build for feature phones and build web experiences for feature phones. And I just flat out say it's not worth it. People use feature phones so rarely, they use, I'm sorry, not feature phones, they so rarely browse the web in big quantities on feature phones and the process of doing so is so painful and the carriers have the decks locked up. So you have to really fight through to get people to there. That all that effort for such little return in terms of user engagement, I just don't think it's worth it. And granted, there's hundreds of millions if not billions more cell phones out there like feature phones than there are smart phones. But that trend is going the opposite direction that we're going to get to more smart phones than feature phones.", "start": 2453.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2572.6730666666667, "text": "I'm just going to support your experience, support you with like an anecdote. Like I had a flip open phone and I never used it for browsing the web because what would be the point? Why would I want to see HTML small, right? I know there were people using WAP and doing all kinds of proprietary stuff, but none of that mattered to me. If I wanted the web, I would go to my browser and this was the old days. And then I saw the smart phone that changed my life was the iPhone. I saw the iPhone in my friend's hand and I was like, wow, that's what I want. And I think a lot of people have that experience, have the experience of, I have friends that have crappy phones because that's all they could afford or something. And they don't use them for the web. They use them for text messaging their friends and say, I'll be right there. What are you doing tonight? Can I come over? Oh, come on, really? Can I come over now? You know, that stuff. They use it for that. And that's what that stuff's for. And then if you have an iPhone, you almost don't use it for a phone call. In fact, sometimes you think you should never use it for a phone call, but that's another topic.", "start": 2509.62, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2575.2557142857145, "text": "Yeah, that is another topic.", "start": 2575.2200000000003, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2609.956822857143, "text": "Yeah, so I, you know, I'm one of those people that say if the usage isn't there, don't support it. Right. So IE6, if people that use IE6 probably aren't really using very robust web applications just because they flat out can't. So why am I going to kill myself to have my really interactive, you know, I want to put complex in quotes, web application work in IE6 when people aren't even using it there? Maybe they get this baseline. And I think Andy Clark reference again, has this style sheet markup where he gives IE6 users just like nice typographical layout on white text and that's it.", "start": 2576.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2614.546666666667, "text": "Right.", "start": 2614.5400000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2614.833066666667, "text": "Right.", "start": 2614.82, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2615.577462857143, "text": "So they can read content, but they can't really do much else on there.", "start": 2615.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2669.444177777778, "text": "He does. He gives them what I often add, do on a site anyway. Like, you know, I really like Roger Ebert's movie reviews. I like Roger Ebert. I think he's an amazing guy and I love his writing, but I can't look at it on the website. You know, that website's horrible. So, and you know, on any, even on a browser, I'll go ahead and use, I will use readability, the readability plugin, right? To create a layout, a look and feel that's very much like the iBook reader or like the Kindle. You know, there's some nice basic default font, nice margins, you know, good space between paragraphs, good, you know, good headings. And that's the way a lot of web content, you know, if it's badly designed, then you just want to take away the design anyway. Right. So, yeah.", "start": 2618.7400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2677.8056, "text": "I found myself actually doing that recently with Instapaper. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that tool, but I'll be on the web. I'll see a bunch of interesting articles.", "start": 2671.0200000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2679.4264516129033, "text": "I'll just say save, save, save.", "start": 2679.38, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2689.351643373494, "text": "And then later on at night on the couch, I'll pull up the Instapaper iPad app and just have this really nice reading experience where all the clutter and the gunk and all the stuff around the content is gone and it's just a really nice legible layout for", "start": 2680.5800000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2693.99152, "text": "that.", "start": 2693.98, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2694.526043373494, "text": "And I find myself reading a lot more and engaging if content in a totally different", "start": 2694.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2699.274545454545, "text": "way, right?", "start": 2699.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2719.0553488372093, "text": "I actually read it like I read a book instead of reading it how I read a web page. The web page, let's kind of scan through it, get out and get out of there because there's all this stuff yelling at me. When I'm reading the Instapaper version of that same web page, I'll just kind of relax on the couch, read it a bit more thoughtfully. And it's interesting how, I guess it's not interesting, it's sort of a duh, right? But the medium totally changes the message.", "start": 2699.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2808.042019047619, "text": "Yeah, we were just, we're working on a design now and Tim Murtaugh just created the print style sheet, right? And we were looking at the print style sheet for the same website and Prince said, you know, if I had my way, this would be the premium site. This is what the site would look like. And it was right. I mean, you can't have the site without all that stuff. They need the ads, you know, for revenue. They need the nav bars. They need all that stuff. But in a perfect world, you know, in a perfect world, you'd actually be able to focus on the web content and not be distracted. So again, this is something that we've been simulating for ourselves on our desktops with readability or Instapaper. And I think mobile, again, your subject, mobile, is building a liking for that. And it's funny because when the web started, it was all about the content, and I think, you know, and obviously you can have very interactive experiences in mobile too, and not to denigrate web apps or anything like that, but when it is about content and you're constantly being distracted by like having to slap the monkey and dancing real estate brokers or whatever that stuff is, if you can just get rid of that stuff and, you know, sure you see it once while you're loading the page into Instapaper, so the advertiser is satisfied. The advertiser has had their view, but afterwards, it's really about reading, you know, because that...", "start": 2721.38, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2826.6953846153847, "text": "And I do think user or customer sort of demand will change this. So I'll give you one anecdote that I have on. We're in this stealth startup, so we've been looking around at domain names, which means we've been using GoDaddy a lot. And those of you that have ever bought a domain name on GoDaddy know that that checkout process is awful.", "start": 2809.7, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2830.644, "text": "Yeah, it's the worst. It's the absolute worst. It's the worst.", "start": 2828.18, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2846.2700000000004, "text": "Try the mobile version. The mobile version is so much better. They have like a iPhone optimized app and they've cut the checkout thing down to like a single screen or two. So we, inside the web browser, go to the mobile version because it's such a better checkout experience.", "start": 2831.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2847.570976, "text": "I use the mobile version.", "start": 2847.54, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2848.6756800000003, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2848.6600000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2849.908, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2849.9, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2858.939124528302, "text": "So customers will start demanding that, right? And I think ultimately, businesses will have to acknowledge that this is what customers want and we need to give people what they want. Otherwise, they're going to go somewhere else for it.", "start": 2850.58, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2878.206707692308, "text": "So Luke, what's your take on the new app that like, for example, the kinds of apps that that are coming out now, like the new Wired app that Adobe was sort of behind that they powered, the 500 meg, tons and tons of stacks of ads philosophy. What do you think of that? Is that the future? Does that go in the opposite direction?", "start": 2860.42, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2921.4081679012343, "text": "I think the form factor for consuming content is the future. I think a lot of these early app attempts at content apps are just flat out crappy. So, I mean, the thing about the Wired app, right, the text is an image. You can't even highlight and copy the text or share it. It's, you know, it's 500 meg, it's essentially like a gigantic CD-ROM file or something, right? So I applaud their attempt at creating, because, I guess, let me back up a second, I actually read Wired, the print magazine, and I have a subscription to them, $12 for 12 issues. I would absolutely love to have those magazines on my iPad, so I can only drag around one thing, you know, when I'm on the plane, and I would read that content,", "start": 2880.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2924.2730666666666, "text": "right?", "start": 2924.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2928.8875657142858, "text": "I'm totally fine if they have some ads in there, I would highly engage with it. But I'm not going to pay $5 for a 500 gigabyte version of one of their", "start": 2924.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2933.236, "text": "magazines.", "start": 2933.22, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2933.7088615384614, "text": "They made it worse, right?", "start": 2933.62, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2935.2816, "text": "Right.", "start": 2935.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2950.946877922078, "text": "Not better. And so it's the struggle, because people don't know what they're doing yet. It's still pretty early, but there's a lot of potential there, and they see the potential, and they don't know how to optimize for that new medium. I think something like Instapaper actually does optimize for that new medium,", "start": 2935.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2955.0642666666668, "text": "right?", "start": 2955.06, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2963.5768213333336, "text": "Because it essentially takes web content and turns it into like an e-book format, which, you know, look at how many people use the Kindle to read books, and I don't know what the stats are on iBooks recently, but I think they've been pretty", "start": 2955.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2966.43152, "text": "good.", "start": 2966.42, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2972.061501234568, "text": "So they take this form factor that actually works on a tablet-based device and apply web content to it, and it's much more engaging, and you actually like using", "start": 2967.2599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2976.02128, "text": "it. Yeah.", "start": 2975.9, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 2994.8344, "text": "So these guys got to figure stuff out. This isn't a, let's go back to the world of print, because now we have a digital screen. Like, let's forget all the lessons that the web taught us for the past 15 years and go back to create, you know, what we were doing before, because we can again. I think that's the approach they're taking, and I think that's the wrong way to do it.", "start": 2977.6600000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3011.0063999999998, "text": "Well, guys, it's been almost an hour. We've got to try and wrap this up. You know, Luke, I want to ask you, going forward, you know, what's your advice for the people who are thinking about how to create new content for these mobile devices, this new platform? What should people be thinking about as we move forward in this new space?", "start": 2996.82, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3054.658596491228, "text": "Yeah, I think it boils down to the same sort of stuff that we were talking about before, you know, understand the natural constraints that come with that form factor and embrace them. Make them part of your design process. Don't fight against them and don't try and cram, you know, constraints from some other sort of medium that you know really well into here. And then the other part is, you know, take a deep dive into what the new capabilities are in there and try and understand how you can use those to innovate and to make things better. If you understand the opportunities and the limitations, which is literally the constraints and the capabilities, then I think you can tune things to be pretty optimized for any kind of form factor that you encounter.", "start": 3015.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3061.07776, "text": "Well, Luke, thanks so much for being on the show. Guys, we'll see you all again next week.", "start": 3059.18, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3062.9287999999997, "text": "Bye bye.", "start": 3062.8999999999996, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 3064.2576470588233, "text": "Thanks, everyone.", "start": 3064.22, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3065.1562, "text": "Bye bye.", "start": 3065.14, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 3090.587771428572, "text": "Thanks again to my co-host, Jeffrey Zeldman, and to our guest, Luke Reblewski of LukeW.com. Thanks also to our sponsor MailChimp.com for making this show possible. And thanks to you for listening. You can find out more about this and all of our other shows by visiting 5by5.tv. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating the show on iTunes. It's the best way to help new listeners find out about the show. This is Dan Benjamin for The Big Web Show.", "start": 3066.98, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3092.8922666666667, "text": "See you again next week.", "start": 3092.86, "speaker": "Person 2"}], "transcriptByParagraphs": [{"end": 0, "text": "This is Episode 6 of The Big Web Show, a live talk show about the web and the future of web publishing. I'm Dan Benjamin, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Jeffrey Zeldman. Hey, Jeffrey.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Hey, Dan. How are you doing?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "The Big Web Show is sponsored by MailChimp, powerful email marketing. MailChimp serves more than 300,000 users and 20 million emails daily, and their template language makes it dead simple to code HTML emails that give your clients the ability to adjust colors, fonts, and more without breaking layout or having to mess with your code. Sign up free and see why everyone's switching to MailChimp.com. Jeffrey, perhaps you could introduce our guest.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I would be delighted. Our guest today is Luke Wroblewski, a guy who makes decisions that affect hundreds, that affect hundreds of millions of people. He is an internationally recognized digital product design leader. He's the author of Web Form Design, which sounds boring, but is anything but. I've read the book many times, and I've seen Luke talk about forms. If you're a web designer, watching Luke talk about forms is better than Adam Sandler. It's just really funny and human and warm and enlightening. He's just an amazing guy.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "About his book, Communication Arts, which usually doesn't dirty its hands by talking about web stuff, they called his book, that rare book capable of transforming the way an entire field does its business. I like that phrase, does its business, but I think they meant it in a... Anyway, differently than I... Anyway. He was the design lead at Yahoo. He was the actually chief design architect at Yahoo. I can't even imagine doing a job like that. Chief design architect. He could do things like send a nav on the right-hand side to a million people.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I mean, I'm sorry, to 100 million people, send one on the left side to another 100 million people, and then see how it did and draw inferences about how people use web pages and how design works on the web. Before that, he was the lead user interface design of eBay's platform team. I guess he was always a lead something. I don't think he ever started as a... He was never a punk. He just like, I don't know, he just left high school and started being the lead something.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "He currently has left Yahoo and is currently the chief design officer and co-founder of a stealth startup, and I guess we can't talk about that or what it does or where it's located.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Hush, hush.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Hush, hush. Okay.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Nothing to break on this show? Nothing you're willing to announce here first?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I'd have to virtually kill the audience.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's a Facebook privacy tool, I believe. No?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I'm just fishing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You're close. It's just a fishing tool.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's a fishing tool. Very good. Okay, and the reason... We're going to talk to Luke about many things, cabbages and kings, but the reason we have him here with us today in particular is to discuss mobile web design and generally discuss design being informed by mobile design. In other words, well, how would you say this, Luke? Typically we do mobile design as kind of an add-on at the end, right? Like, oh, they wanted a mobile site too. What can we leave off? That kind of thing? Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You're suggesting...", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "The opposite. Yeah. I'm suggesting the opposite. How does that work?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Sure. So as you mentioned, the way we usually go building web services is we'll go build kind of the desktop PC version up front and start building in the capabilities and the limitations of that system. And then afterwards we might say, oh, hey, can we create a mobile version of this? Can we kind of port some of these features over and create a quote-unquote mobile version? But I think increasingly that's becoming kind of a backwards way of doing things because of the way mobile is growing. And it's really kind of outrageous the way it's growing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I believe the mobile web is growing eight times faster than the desktop web grew. So back in the heyday of AOL, things are going eight times faster now in the mobile space.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That's amazing just in itself because I've just been reviewing how fast the web grew. It went from like 3 million users in 95 to like 100 million users in 97. And that's exponential. It doesn't even cover it. That's amazing. And it went from like 240 hosts in 1994 to like we have millions now, uncountable. They're all porn, but we have millions. So therefore they are countable. And you're saying it's faster than that? Mobile adoption is faster than that?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. It's outpacing by eight times. If you look at heavy mobile data users, we're looking at one billion people within the next two years using heavy mobile data.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That's all over the world?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. Yes, sir. I've got a number of little data things I can kind of pull up here if you guys are interested in hearing in more depth.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, I think that'd be pretty cool to hear that. I think one of the things that obviously is making a big impact in this is the popularity of devices. Really all of the mobile devices that we have now, but especially things like the iPad, the iPhone, we always sort of talk about those devices. And people are probably sick and tired of hearing about them already. But you have to look at the impact that they're having, especially in the kind of work that we do in the web sphere. The fact that for so long, we were focused on just getting the data out there.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And then it was, well, how do we get it out there to these other browsers with a consistent experience? And now it's, how do we get it to these entirely new generation of platforms? What changes though? And while you're pulling those figures up, maybe we can think about this and talk about this for a second. What changes in the mentality of the designer? And this is something that Jeffrey, I wanted to talk to you about on the show. Does your mentality and focus in the way that you go about designing change or should it change when you think about these other platforms?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Are you still concerned with designing a consistent experience for an iPad or an iPhone as the experience that you're designing for a web browser or has that changed along with it?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. We think about it all the time. I think it's really, the big difference is with phones, I think, because you've got a much smaller screen. And I think that's what Luke's talking about mainly, as we'll find out when we actually listen to Luke. But yeah, I mean, with the iPad, we haven't done any iPad apps yet. And I think of the iPad as just a nice delivery system for a website, right? It's the same.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You lose hover, but you gain touch and maybe there's some ways we can start incorporating some of that into our website designs, which again is something I'd like to hear more about from Luke. But yeah, I think you have to, yeah. Go ahead and give us some stats.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Sure. Well, let's go to the stats for a second and then I'll answer that question. You kind of mentioned the iPhone growth. Basically, AT&T's mobile data traffic in the past three years has increased 50 times. So they saw a 4,932% increase starting on June 29th, 2007. And there was releases in July 2008, June 2009 of additional iPhones. And so them kind of being the, I guess you could say furthest along in terms of heavy data usage. There's a study released by Cisco not too long ago that showed the average iPhone user uses about 30 times as much mobile traffic as a feature phone user.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And as you start seeing more and more devices that are connected to these networks that have a good web browsing experience, I think you'll see comparable numbers in the Android space and who knows what HP is going to do with a web OS. I was actually just reading an article where the CEO of HP was saying, well, we didn't buy Palm for the smartphones. We bought it for their web operating system, which we want to put on all of the mobile devices that we have out there that are connected to the network.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Does that surprise you, them coming out and saying that? Was that a surprise to you?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think it's sort of a semantic thing, right? Is it a smartphone? Is it a mobile computer? Is it a, I don't know. I imagine they're going to have different form factors for computing devices and there's going to be mobile form factors and they're going to be connected to the network, so call it what you will. If it's small enough and it makes calls, maybe it's a smartphone, maybe it's a mobile computer.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I wonder if it is semantics. Here's the quote that you're referring to. It's by HP CEO Mark Hurd. He says, we didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. He goes on to say that doesn't in any way make sense. And he says, and I tell people that, but it doesn't seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The web OS is one of the two ground up pieces of software that's built as a web operating environment. And he goes on to say that he has tens of millions of small form factor web connected devices.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I mean, do you expect that these are the kinds of devices, Luke, that we're going to need to think about deploying websites to?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. Well, let me back up half a second. I think the reason why people question him when he says we're not getting in the smartphone business is smartphones are projected to be the past PCs in terms of sales next year. So it's a huge booming opportunity to have mobile computing network connected devices in people's hands. And the sales of that, if other regions or any indicator are going to blow up and have been blowing up.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But when you look at what they consider to be kind of a mobile connected device, the research a lot of people look at comes from Mary Meeker over on Morgan Stanley Research. And she has this presentation, which I can dig up for you guys, but it's around kind of mobile, the next big technology growth. And essentially what they say is, you know, PCs were sort of 10 times the mini computer market. Desktop internet computers was basically 10 times the PC market. And mobile is going to be 10 times the size of the desktop internet market.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And in mobile, when they talk about 10 billion plus devices, they're talking about tablets, smart connected MP3 players, cell phones, smartphones, wireless home appliances, things like the Kindle, mobile video devices. There's a wide range of things. And I honestly think anything that can have a screen is probably going to be connected to the network in some way at some point. Just because, you know, why not, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Sure, it should be. At some point, it's not unrealistic to assume that the shower, you know, that your shower or your water heater could have a little screen and that when you're away, you know, you'd be able to tell if your water heater, if you need to like have someone come in and adjust your water heater or something like that. There's no reason for, you know, if you've read the book Everywhere by, wow, by Adam Greenfield, the great Adam Greenfield, it pretty much talks about that kind of world. And he's not necessarily a fan of that kind of world, but that's the world we're moving to.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And there's no reason for everything not to be on the network. I guess bandwidth is a consideration. Do mobile devices, but they're using a whole different bandwidth, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, it depends on how they connect, right? But if they're on 3G, then they're using different stuff than when they're connected through Wi-Fi or 4G. Really depends on what they have. FedEx guy just showed up at my door and he went away. Okay. Speaking of a whole different network.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Luke, do you anticipate though, that all of these devices, I mean, you just, you bring this up by saying 3G, I mean, obviously there's going to be an evolution of the kind of connectivity that these devices have. And, you know, we've seen multiple, multiple next generations of Wi-Fi, for example, just over the last few years, we consistently see 3G, 4G and onward. I know this kind of gets into the technical side of the house, but do those speeds and the changing of those speeds play a lot into how we think of designing that experience for these kinds of devices?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Are we still waiting for things to get faster? What's sort of the limitation that you see right now?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I wouldn't wait for things to get faster just because everybody's for years have been, oh, as soon as we have broadband, right, we can deliver rich media experiences. Okay, that's great. But then while you're waiting for broadband, all of a sudden mobile exploded and you had limitations of 3G, right? So there goes your rich media experience.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I love the way Jeremy Keith defines rich media experience as a connection between people. So that reading your friend's comment on Twitter and laughing or crying, you know, when something sad happens to your friend, that's a rich media experience. And how much bandwidth are we talking about? And that's an experience that can, you know, easily be transmitted on any mobile device, even not a smartphone, but kind of like, you know, phones from five years ago, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "SMS, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right, right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I mean, you can do that through text messaging. I think there's something like 4 billion text messages sent per day in the U.S. alone. So a lot of data and a lot of connections are being done there. And then, you know, also different regions in the world have different levels of bandwidth connectivity. Different devices will support different types of connectivity. My view is always try to optimize the heck out of what you're doing in terms of performance.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Because even on the web, when you've got broadband connections, a couple of milliseconds here, a couple of milliseconds there, there's been a lot of studies that show they really negatively impact user experience. And I guarantee everybody tuning in on the phone or on the web or through the chat channel has had an experience where they're sitting and waiting for a page to load and they click back and they never get there.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I think that's something that happens all the time. And we need to be very, very cognizant of it. So I don't wait for the day when bandwidth is going to be this holy grail that, oh my gosh, it works. I can send everything I want down the pipe. Maybe we'll get there at one point, but shouldn't wait for it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's the same reason Google wouldn't have rounded corners. Pre-CSS3, pre-support for rounded corners in Chrome and Safari and Opera and Firefox, before all that, they wouldn't have rounded corners because the hacks that were used to create the rounded corners added half a byte to a page and multiplied by the hundreds of millions of users they have every hour. That was unacceptable bandwidth loss. It would make a slight delay. This is for their apps.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Interestingly, if you look at all the major sites, they're all massively vigilant about performance. Even Facebook recently has been going to town. I think at the Velocity conference maybe this week or something, they said they boosted speeds again two times. And they're just vigilant, vigilant, vigilant about making things faster and faster.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "They released this Facebook Lite version and now they released this Facebook Zero version for mobile where they're trying to make the performance better and better so you can actually get your hands on the content instead of sitting there watching things spin.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I love using Facebook, the iPhone version of Facebook, on an iPad because it's all slimmed down and has the features I actually need. It's a mobile experience and that's what we're going to talk about. It's a mobile experience but it has the speed of the iPad's processor so I don't have to even wait. The guy, I forget his name, who did a brilliant job of shrinking Facebook and putting it on the iPhone, whether you then look at it on a more robust platform like the iPad, it's really a dream and it's really a lot of fun. I also know that Facebook hired Nicole Sullivan.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "She just recently completed a stint optimizing the CSS files for Facebook because I think they had something like 5,000 lines of code at one point. Because of the way Facebook's developed with lots of small teams in parallel, they're never going to have one clean style sheet with 100 rules in it. It's always going to be bigger than your site or mine, what we would like them to be. But they were able, by working with this expert, Nicole Sullivan, to shrink it on down quite a bit. Because all that stuff matters. It matters to their users. You can always go somewhere else.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Maybe with Facebook you can't. But who knows? If someone came along offering the same features at less bandwidth and a cleaner interface, they could lose. They can't take their users for granted.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, that's kind of what they did to MySpace, right? If you look at one of the core differences between Facebook and MySpace, especially actually to back up even a second, one of the things that I think killed Friendster was the performance of it. Friendster was one of the first social networks and they had a lot of the features that ultimately MySpace and then Facebook had. But that thing was just the slowest, most painful to use product from a performance perspective and you heard gripes about it over and over and over again.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I wanted to jump on one thing that you mentioned there around the smaller form factor of Facebook and how taking the time to design what your product experience is in a mobile environment really forces you to focus on the stuff that matters. And I think Joe Hewitt's the guy you're referring to that built the original iPhone.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right, right. He built the first Facebook app, yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And now that Facebook app kind of oscillates between it and the KoiPond app for it is number one in the Apple App Store. I think they're like in this heated competition of who's going to win. So when he went through and did that process, I had a quote from him that I like to reference because I think it kind of speaks to why I believe going mobile first is a good design approach. He says, my goal was initially just to make a mobile companion, but I became convinced it was possible to create a version of Facebook that was actually better than the website.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I think some of these natural constraints in mobile are there to help you create something that's better than the website. Essentially, with just even screen size, as Jeffrey mentioned that a little bit earlier, typically we're designing for 1024 by 768. If you look at an iPhone screen or the first generation of Android phones or the first Palm screens, you got 320 by 480 pixels. So you just lost 80 percent of your canvas, which means 80 percent of the space you had to throw links, buttons, images, pictures, tables, whatever the heck you had on that page is gone.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And when you throw away 80 percent of the stuff you have on either a home page or a feature page or a content page or whatever, you have to determine what stays. And the things that stay should be the most important things. And the most important things should be the things that get your users what they want and help drive your business.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You're touching on the core of design, what design really is. And people always talk about, you know, the design's finished when there's nothing else you can remove from it. It's very easy to make something look to be a certain kind of designer, to be a decorator. It's very easy. Well, it's not easy. It takes a lot of talent and skill. But it's possible to develop Photoshop, you know, Photoshop abilities.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's possible to have a good eye and know how to make something look pretty by putting lots of textures and gradations and curves and shapes and all this kind of stuff that doesn't really need to be there and make a really nice looking web page. But is that necessarily good design? Most people think of design, a lot of people think of design as that, that aspect of it. And that's really, to me, that's always a secondary thing of what being a designer is. That, you know, for a while that may be all you can do. And it's great that you're getting those Photoshop skills.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You certainly need them. But really design is problem solving. And so focusing on what the user needs, focusing on, you know, a content strategy and a brand strategy and delivering those. Every website, whether mobile or not, should do that. But I know you've seen lots of examples, and we all have, where there's so much going on on a page, I don't even know what, you know, where to throw up first. I mean, it's just...", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, it's a gluttony of resources, right? When you have a lot, you use a lot. When you have constraints, you are forced to focus. And I actually think design is, I used to use this phrase a lot, design is the process of gradually applying constraints until an elegant solution remains. I can't remember who said it. Someone smarter than me said it. But that's always resonated with me, right? Like, okay, we have this business requirement, or our users need to do this. That's a constraint. Or we only got 320 by 480 pixels. That's a constraint.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Just keep applying these constraints onto your idea until it is the right solution in that environment.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "When you find that phrase exactly as written, I would like to get that tattooed. That is the greatest thing. Another problem that we constantly encounter, I mean, we're lucky we have really smart clients and all that. But when you're working with people, working for people, there's always this, I guess it's a constraint in a different way. There's always the committee. There's always the group of people who, you know, the publisher really wants this, and the editor-in-chief really wants that. And the marketing people want this.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And the advertising department says it's really important to leave room for all 700 different ad shapes that we might sell. And by the time you're done, you have a very rich page in a way because you have lots of content on it. But you also have a non-editorial, non-curated, kind of undesigned experience where the best you can do is try to guide eye tracking through the sea of stuff. I mean, it's even with a great client to sell them on constantly cutting stuff out and simplifying and saying, that doesn't have to be in a flyout on the nav. It's okay.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "People will find that if they want it. Here's how they'll find it. Or we can do that contextually, or we can save that for its own section. You know, it's very hard to sell a lean homepage, a lean landing page, all that stuff. But when you're doing mobile, which a lot of clients think of as an afterthought, suddenly a lot of those handcuffs come off. Suddenly you have more freedom, I think, to just say, look, we've only got, like you said, 300 square pixels. So something's got to go. What do we actually want people to do? I mean, can you talk about that a little more?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Because I think initially we were talking about technological restrictions and bandwidth and things. And those are all very important. But I think what designing for mobile does in terms of strategy of user experience is really the key.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think you nailed it there. You have only so much space, so you have to prioritize. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard people kind of doing this backwards thing. So I gave a talk at LinkedIn about two weeks ago, and I was chatting with some of the guys", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "over there.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And he said, oh, you know, we understand where you're going with this mobile-first thing because we've been iterating on this iPhone app. And recently our CEO has been, you know, I love the simplicity of this iPhone app. Why the hell doesn't our website work like this? And I keep hearing that sentiment more and more now where people have an experience on either an Android device or an iPhone device or even the iPad or what have you.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It sounds like what you're saying is if you can get mobile on the front burner in an early meeting with your client or your in-house client, if you work in-house, then you could actually use that as a sales tool to bring back to the committee or to bring back to the group of 5,000 stakeholders that all want their thing on the home page and say, you know, guys, we were all agreeing what a great experience the mobile is. If we want to have that same experience on the website, if we want our users to have that experience, then we're going to have to trim.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Or is it a function that people want what's on the mobile and they'd love, in theory, they'd love their website to behave that way. But once you give them a 1024 wide screen, they just, you know, it's like, I'd like to live a spiritual life, but if you put a million dollars in my bank account, I'm going to spend it. Is it like that?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, they can't help themselves. Well, I do think you can sell. So here's the process I would go through. I think you can sell people on doing mobile first because of this huge opportunity, right? Because there's going to be more smartphones sold than PCs next year because the mobile web is growing eight times faster. You can throw a whole bunch of numbers at people who are very business focused and who are kind of revenue driven and opportunity driven to say, this is something that's really important. We should focus on it first rather than secondarily.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So once you kind of hit that roadblock and like I said, there's tons of information and data out there that supports this case. Once you kind of sell that, then you say, OK, well, here we are designing the mobile site and we have really limited space. We have limited speed. People are using touched interaction. So we have to simplify things. We can't use hovers. We have to be focused on performance. And ta-da, here comes this very focused design. Now when it comes time to go do the web design, let's not lose that focus, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Let's not forget the fact that we spent X amount of time prioritizing what's most important for our customers and for our business and laying it out appropriately. Let's take those learnings and let's take that process and apply it to the desktop so we have that same kind of laser focus there. But frankly, the way people use the web is not that different from the way they use mobile, right? They're very in and out. Most page views are under 10 seconds. I think the mean and the study that I cite sometimes is a two to three seconds per page.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So one, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand done. You have to be focused in that kind of environment because you have to get a key message across to people. You have to explain to them what they can do there, how they can do it really, really darn quickly and without focus, with a whole bunch of gibberish on the page and, you know, like kind of UI, I don't know, UI debris and content crap or whatever you want to call it. Fluffy stuff that they throw on there. It's very hard to communicate. Yeah. Chart junk, you know, UI debris, what have you.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "A lot of that stuff is very unnecessary. So working from mobile backwards gives you that focus. And hopefully you've sold people on that prioritization exercise and you've sold them on. This is what has to be on that initial screen and on this key screen and on this series of actions. And then, you know, don't let go of that. Right. Hold on tight to that. There is a quote inside of the iPad user interface guidelines, which says you should not view the large iPad screen as an invitation to bring back all the functionality you pruned from your iPhone application.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Which I think is really spot on.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So use it instead just to. What would you use that extra space for? What does Apple think you should use the extra space for?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, I think they should use the extra space for making those experiences much more immersive and rich. Right. So, like, let's say you're building a video player right now, you've got this full canvas to display the content. Or let's say you're working through like Twitter. Right. Instead of making everything super tiny fonts in that list of updates, you can make things a little bit bigger now. Maybe you can allow people to actually see more than one action in the UI.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But that doesn't remove the core focus of here's the stream of updates that I'm looking at and they're organized in such and such way because those are the pieces of content that I care about. Like when Flickr built their mobile app, they went from 60 plus things in their menu to this. Those of you that have been to m.flickr.com, they have these four blue bars at the top. Recent activity, uploads from your contacts, today's interestingness and photos near you. Yep. So they nailed what people actually do on Flickr.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And if you watch people use Flickr, they look at what the activity is on their stream. Has anybody commented on my photos? Has anybody favorited my photos? Has anything happened in a pool or group I'm in? So they really care about this update stream. They want to see what their contacts are sharing in terms of pictures. And then if they're kind of bored and want to kill some time or just see some beautiful photography, they want to see what's interesting. And so those are these like three core use cases.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "When you bring those to the iPad, I think you just have an opportunity to make that more immersive and more directly engaging. So you can imagine the difference between interestingness photos on the iPhone versus the iPad, right? The iPad has a very beautiful photography experience. Take advantage of the whole screen and really let that stuff stand out.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I love what you're saying about simplifying the user experience and then just letting it be richer on a bigger device because that device is more immersive. Some other things that I really like about the mobile focus, the mobile explosion, the fact that your client may be using an old version of Internet Explorer to look at the website, but they also have an Android or a Palm Pre or an iPhone in their pocket, probably an iPhone. And they know that that stuff can look really beautiful and type can look really beautiful.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "In a strange way, the superiority of the experience on mobile is doing a few things. It's getting people interested in type who weren't before.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "The focus on mobile has been really good for web standards because people are more open to the idea, for instance, that support for IE6 may mean a simplified style sheet for IE6 or fewer features on IE6 instead of pixel perfect sameness of experience on every device because they know that the site looks different on every device anyway because the client can now pick up an iPhone and look at it and knows that the experience is different because people have smartphones and they're going to mobile sites that are different, like m.flickr.com is different from Flickr.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Because of that, there's more acceptance of not wasting a whole lot of energy trying to make every website look the same in every browser and device. There's more acceptance that the website can behave slightly differently. Let's say if there's a photo gallery, you can have a scroll bar that works really well in IE8 and in Chrome and in Safari and in Opera 10, but you can omit that from IE6 and not worry about it as long as people can still hit forward and back with buttons. They don't need to have the really pretty Ajax-y looking scroll bar and it's fine. It's fine.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's a different experience, but it's fine. I think people are getting into the notion that you can spend more time creating smart features and allowing each device to experience that feature as it experiences it and being less anal and less rigid and print-like in their... A few years ago, it was considered a badge of honor that your website would look the same in Netscape 4 and act exactly the same in Netscape 4, and that's how we have these really bloated sites, which don't scale well and aren't accessible and all the other problems we know that go with it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think the focus on simplicity in mobile and the ubiquity of mobile is helping us in that struggle, too. It seems like it's much easier now to sell web standards and to sell the idea that every site doesn't have to look the same in every browser.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And so I think you've hit on two really key points around how thinking about mobile first helps you with challenges we've had in the web design world for years, right? One is that everybody wants to add a whole bunch of crap to the page problem, and mobile helps you deal with that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Two, everybody wants the thing to look exactly the same across every browser, and the fact that there's a whole bunch of different types of form factors of devices connected to the network helps you with that problem because you can clearly illustrate, well, it shouldn't be the same because these are very different experiences, devices, use cases. And then the third thing, which you began to touch on, that I think mobile first helps you with is there's a bunch of capabilities in a lot of the newer mobile platforms that simply don't exist in a desktop and in the older browsers we have.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So you started to touch on some of the things that we have with fonts in HTML5, quote unquote, capable browsers. On mobile, you know, Android's running WebKit, Apple's running WebKit, Palm's running WebKit, Nokia and RIM both made acquisitions in the space and are moving towards WebKit. And I think they even have beta releases or full releases of those browsers very recently.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So you actually have a very capable browser across all these devices that can do CSS3, that can do AppCache, so it can store content locally, that can do video via HTML5, right, that can do Canvas, so you can actually render graphics in it using markup and script, that has the geolocation API so you can get access to where the device actually is. All those new capabilities give you a whole bunch of things to work from that you simply don't have when you're trying to design for the IE6 through IE9 world in the desktop.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And because you have those new capabilities, you can innovate in really interesting ways. So what could we do with our website if we know the user's location right now? What could we do with our web presence if we could let people, you know, instantly update a photo, not plug in a camera, move it to the desktop, drag it in. But, you know, there's a camera embedded in the device, you click two buttons and there's a photo integrated with your web content.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think those capabilities, when they're available to you, make you think about the web in a whole different way, right, because you can do stuff that before was just very, very painful and very, very non-integrated.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That's very exciting. I think also touch is a big deal. Touch makes you think about the interface differently, right? You're not basically presenting people with a text interface and buttons. Instead, you're presenting them with a photo, which, you know, on a device, I touch the photo, I pinch, I zoom, I push the photo to the side and expect that another photo will come up. So you have all kinds of different means of accessing content directly, right? I think that's a big part of it, too. And it kind of changes the way you think about design.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Instead of like, here's some content in a box and buttons and what about touch? And how can we start thinking about the different touch capabilities and bringing them into our websites?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Sure. So let me start by answering that question by saying I'm not going to get to, there's no way I'll get to all my thoughts on touch, but I have written them all out. So if you want to go to LukeW.com slash touch, you'll see a lot of resources for what I'm going to talk about here. The one thing about touch that I'll say at the top level is this thing is that this interface paradigm is really, really taking off like crazy. There was 1.03 million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009, right? So over a million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "There's a hundred thousand Android phones activated per day.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Stop. Say that. Let's say that first one again.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "A million touch screen phones sold per day in 2009, which is huge, right? So literally while we're sitting here today, a million new touch enabled devices got into consumers' hands. Apple sells 97,000 iPhones per day. Android phones, 100,000 get activated per day. There's about 40,000 iPads sold per day. All of these are touch enabled devices. So just between those three vendors, right, you're talking about 250,000 touch enabled devices that made it into people's hands today. And they're using those things to get on the web.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So if you have an interface for your website that doesn't take touch gestures, touch target sizes into account and is really heavily reliant on mouse and click interactions, that's 250,000 people today that when they go to your website could potentially have a really crappy experience. And tomorrow that's 500,000. And by the end of the week, you know, the numbers start adding up. So I think designing for touch is really important because these touch platforms are really taking off.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I mean, Apple has one, Microsoft has Windows, Windows Phone, Google's got stuff with their tablet going on and with Android. Nokia has one, even Ubuntu recently released touch based guidelines for how they're operating system supports multi-touch. RIM, Research in Motion that makes blackberries, these guys sell, you know, 100,000 blackberries per day. They're in their new operating system 6.0, they're supporting multi-touch.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Luke, I've got a question for you coming in from the chat room. They ask, when we design experience for devices with lots of capabilities like touch, you know, CSS3, they're basically saying, when should we stop worrying about older devices? When should we start focusing on the newer generation of devices, the touch enabled devices as opposed to older mobile browsers?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, so this is a topic which I'm going to kind of put in a little plug for Event Apart at Jeffrey's fantastic conference Event Apart. There's kind of two schools of thought that come, and Eric, sorry. Eric's not here, but I nod to him in a gestural bow.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I bow in his direction.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I bow in his general direction.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So there's folks like Andy Clark who are saying, design for the best experience first, right? Focus on making things as great as humanly possible. Take advantage of all the capabilities and force basically vendors and users and people to come to the better experiences because they're so much better. Then there's another class of folks that say, well, you know, design the base experience first and then progressively enhance that basic experience for people that have these new capabilities.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So Dan Cederholm talks about CSS3 in that kind of way where he says, you know, have the CSS3 things be rewards for people that have capable enough devices that can use it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right. So one is a champion approach. Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So one's kind of a bottom-up approach. Another one's kind of a top-down approach. I personally think you can go either way and you'll end up in the same place. If you go from the top or if you go from the bottom, you'll basically get to the same", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "place.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You'll have something that either degrades well or something that enhances well. And kind of it's the same thing. It's a philosophical difference and a working style difference.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's a mindset difference, but it's, yeah, I agree. You know, if you're good at what you're doing and if you care about all your users, you're going to have a site that, you know, is amazing in WebKit and Firefox and Opera and is just fine and dandy in an older device or in the IE6, you know.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Or you say screw it to some of that stuff. I mean, this is where I've sort of had a little bit of a flare-up with people that have been doing mobile design for a while because I've seen Yahoo go through the processes and the pain that it takes to go and build for feature phones and build web experiences for feature phones. And I just flat out say it's not worth it. People use feature phones so rarely, they use, I'm sorry, not feature phones, they so rarely browse the web in big quantities on feature phones and the process of doing so is so painful and the carriers have the decks locked up.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So you have to really fight through to get people to there. That all that effort for such little return in terms of user engagement, I just don't think it's worth it. And granted, there's hundreds of millions if not billions more cell phones out there like feature phones than there are smart phones. But that trend is going the opposite direction that we're going to get to more smart phones than feature phones.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I'm just going to support your experience, support you with like an anecdote. Like I had a flip open phone and I never used it for browsing the web because what would be the point? Why would I want to see HTML small, right? I know there were people using WAP and doing all kinds of proprietary stuff, but none of that mattered to me. If I wanted the web, I would go to my browser and this was the old days. And then I saw the smart phone that changed my life was the iPhone. I saw the iPhone in my friend's hand and I was like, wow, that's what I want.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I think a lot of people have that experience, have the experience of, I have friends that have crappy phones because that's all they could afford or something. And they don't use them for the web. They use them for text messaging their friends and say, I'll be right there. What are you doing tonight? Can I come over? Oh, come on, really? Can I come over now? You know, that stuff. They use it for that. And that's what that stuff's for. And then if you have an iPhone, you almost don't use it for a phone call.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "In fact, sometimes you think you should never use it for a phone call, but that's another topic.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, that is another topic.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, so I, you know, I'm one of those people that say if the usage isn't there, don't support it. Right. So IE6, if people that use IE6 probably aren't really using very robust web applications just because they flat out can't. So why am I going to kill myself to have my really interactive, you know, I want to put complex in quotes, web application work in IE6 when people aren't even using it there? Maybe they get this baseline. And I think Andy Clark reference again, has this style sheet markup where he gives IE6 users just like nice typographical layout on white text and that's it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So they can read content, but they can't really do much else on there.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "He does. He gives them what I often add, do on a site anyway. Like, you know, I really like Roger Ebert's movie reviews. I like Roger Ebert. I think he's an amazing guy and I love his writing, but I can't look at it on the website. You know, that website's horrible. So, and you know, on any, even on a browser, I'll go ahead and use, I will use readability, the readability plugin, right? To create a layout, a look and feel that's very much like the iBook reader or like the Kindle.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You know, there's some nice basic default font, nice margins, you know, good space between paragraphs, good, you know, good headings. And that's the way a lot of web content, you know, if it's badly designed, then you just want to take away the design anyway. Right. So, yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I found myself actually doing that recently with Instapaper. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that tool, but I'll be on the web. I'll see a bunch of interesting articles.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I'll just say save, save, save.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And then later on at night on the couch, I'll pull up the Instapaper iPad app and just have this really nice reading experience where all the clutter and the gunk and all the stuff around the content is gone and it's just a really nice legible layout for", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I find myself reading a lot more and engaging if content in a totally different", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "way, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I actually read it like I read a book instead of reading it how I read a web page. The web page, let's kind of scan through it, get out and get out of there because there's all this stuff yelling at me. When I'm reading the Instapaper version of that same web page, I'll just kind of relax on the couch, read it a bit more thoughtfully. And it's interesting how, I guess it's not interesting, it's sort of a duh, right? But the medium totally changes the message.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, we were just, we're working on a design now and Tim Murtaugh just created the print style sheet, right? And we were looking at the print style sheet for the same website and Prince said, you know, if I had my way, this would be the premium site. This is what the site would look like. And it was right. I mean, you can't have the site without all that stuff. They need the ads, you know, for revenue. They need the nav bars. They need all that stuff. But in a perfect world, you know, in a perfect world, you'd actually be able to focus on the web content and not be distracted.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So again, this is something that we've been simulating for ourselves on our desktops with readability or Instapaper. And I think mobile, again, your subject, mobile, is building a liking for that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And it's funny because when the web started, it was all about the content, and I think, you know, and obviously you can have very interactive experiences in mobile too, and not to denigrate web apps or anything like that, but when it is about content and you're constantly being distracted by like having to slap the monkey and dancing real estate brokers or whatever that stuff is, if you can just get rid of that stuff and, you know, sure you see it once while you're loading the page into Instapaper, so the advertiser is satisfied.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "The advertiser has had their view, but afterwards, it's really about reading, you know, because that...", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I do think user or customer sort of demand will change this. So I'll give you one anecdote that I have on. We're in this stealth startup, so we've been looking around at domain names, which means we've been using GoDaddy a lot. And those of you that have ever bought a domain name on GoDaddy know that that checkout process is awful.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, it's the worst. It's the absolute worst. It's the worst.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Try the mobile version. The mobile version is so much better. They have like a iPhone optimized app and they've cut the checkout thing down to like a single screen or two. So we, inside the web browser, go to the mobile version because it's such a better checkout experience.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I use the mobile version.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So customers will start demanding that, right? And I think ultimately, businesses will have to acknowledge that this is what customers want and we need to give people what they want. Otherwise, they're going to go somewhere else for it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So Luke, what's your take on the new app that like, for example, the kinds of apps that that are coming out now, like the new Wired app that Adobe was sort of behind that they powered, the 500 meg, tons and tons of stacks of ads philosophy. What do you think of that? Is that the future? Does that go in the opposite direction?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think the form factor for consuming content is the future. I think a lot of these early app attempts at content apps are just flat out crappy. So, I mean, the thing about the Wired app, right, the text is an image. You can't even highlight and copy the text or share it. It's, you know, it's 500 meg, it's essentially like a gigantic CD-ROM file or something, right? So I applaud their attempt at creating, because, I guess, let me back up a second, I actually read Wired, the print magazine, and I have a subscription to them, $12 for 12 issues.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I would absolutely love to have those magazines on my iPad, so I can only drag around one thing, you know, when I'm on the plane, and I would read that content,", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I'm totally fine if they have some ads in there, I would highly engage with it. But I'm not going to pay $5 for a 500 gigabyte version of one of their", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "magazines.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "They made it worse, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Not better. And so it's the struggle, because people don't know what they're doing yet. It's still pretty early, but there's a lot of potential there, and they see the potential, and they don't know how to optimize for that new medium. I think something like Instapaper actually does optimize for that new medium,", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Because it essentially takes web content and turns it into like an e-book format, which, you know, look at how many people use the Kindle to read books, and I don't know what the stats are on iBooks recently, but I think they've been pretty", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "good.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So they take this form factor that actually works on a tablet-based device and apply web content to it, and it's much more engaging, and you actually like using", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "it. Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So these guys got to figure stuff out. This isn't a, let's go back to the world of print, because now we have a digital screen. Like, let's forget all the lessons that the web taught us for the past 15 years and go back to create, you know, what we were doing before, because we can again. I think that's the approach they're taking, and I think that's the wrong way to do it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, guys, it's been almost an hour. We've got to try and wrap this up. You know, Luke, I want to ask you, going forward, you know, what's your advice for the people who are thinking about how to create new content for these mobile devices, this new platform? What should people be thinking about as we move forward in this new space?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, I think it boils down to the same sort of stuff that we were talking about before, you know, understand the natural constraints that come with that form factor and embrace them. Make them part of your design process. Don't fight against them and don't try and cram, you know, constraints from some other sort of medium that you know really well into here. And then the other part is, you know, take a deep dive into what the new capabilities are in there and try and understand how you can use those to innovate and to make things better.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "If you understand the opportunities and the limitations, which is literally the constraints and the capabilities, then I think you can tune things to be pretty optimized for any kind of form factor that you encounter.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, Luke, thanks so much for being on the show. Guys, we'll see you all again next week.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Bye bye.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Thanks, everyone.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Bye bye.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 4"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Thanks again to my co-host, Jeffrey Zeldman, and to our guest, Luke Reblewski of LukeW.com. Thanks also to our sponsor MailChimp.com for making this show possible. And thanks to you for listening. You can find out more about this and all of our other shows by visiting 5by5.tv. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating the show on iTunes. It's the best way to help new listeners find out about the show. This is Dan Benjamin for The Big Web Show.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "See you again next week.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}]}, {"id": "20c0fdc7-1273-428e-9a61-dd1eeae94342", "url": "https://static.lukew.com/audio/techzing-087.mp3", "date": 1290470400000, "type": 3, "title": "The Interface is the Product", "topics": ["user experience", "interface design", "information architecture", "interaction design", "visual design"], "endTime": 2391.2, "nameMap": {"Person 1": "Luke Wroblewski", "Person 2": "Jason Roberts", "Person 3": "Justin Vincent"}, "summary": "In episode 87 of TechZing, Luke Wroblewski, a user experience expert and entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital, discusses the importance of design in software development, including the roles of web designers, user experience experts, and UI experts. The conversation covers various topics related to mobile and web design, including the importance of simplicity, designing for different contexts and use cases, and moving beyond traditional input elements and forms for collecting user input. The speakers also briefly discuss a stealth startup they are working on, which is web-based and expected to release publicly in the next month or so.", "filename": "techzing-087.mp3", "startTime": 2266.96, "coverImage": "https://qrmsyiqritqdkspkjoqy.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/lukew-media/batch-1-audio-image/podcast_techzing.png", "transcript": [{"end": 26.68, "text": "Welcome to episode 87 of TechSing, hosted by myself, Justin Vincent, and Jason Roberts.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 34.64, "text": "On today's show, our guest is Luke Wroblewski, who's a user experience expert, and whose work has reached more than 700 million people worldwide.", "start": 26.68, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 37.24, "text": "Luke is also an entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital.", "start": 34.64, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 38.64, "text": "Hey, Luke, welcome to the show.", "start": 37.24, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 40.32, "text": "Hey, how are you guys doing?", "start": 38.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 48.94, "text": "So as a show that's primarily about tech and startups, we've interviewed a lot of technologists and entrepreneurs, but you're actually the first UI expert that we've had on the show.", "start": 40.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 57.6, "text": "So I suppose the first question I'd like to ask you is if you could give us a little bit of an overview of the design field as it stands.", "start": 48.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 67.72, "text": "I mean, there are web designers, there's user experience, UI experts, and I don't know, I guess I'd just like to get a better understanding of what are all the roles and how do you see it currently?", "start": 57.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 72.92, "text": "Yeah, you know, it really, the quintessential design answer to every question is it depends.", "start": 67.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 82.32000000000001, "text": "And so I'll sort of start off with that answer, because it really does depend on who you ask and what profession and kind of background they come from.", "start": 72.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 90.92, "text": "The design profession, especially with interactive software, a lot of people came to it from a large diversity of backgrounds when the web kind of took off.", "start": 82.32000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 101.72000000000001, "text": "And so you had people coming from human factors backgrounds, from cognitive psychology backgrounds, from computer science backgrounds, from graphic design backgrounds, library and information science backgrounds.", "start": 90.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 113.16, "text": "And, you know, in truth, all those factors really add up to creating an appropriate user interface for a software product, whether it's on the web or on the desktop or on your mobile device.", "start": 101.72000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 118.92, "text": "You know, you sort of have to think about how does the information structure, how do people make their way through it?", "start": 113.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 121.48, "text": "How are we presenting that information visually?", "start": 118.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 124.25999999999999, "text": "How are we presenting that information textually, too?", "start": 121.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 127.08, "text": "So things like copywriting kind of play into it.", "start": 124.25999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 134.96, "text": "So it's really an opportunity for a lot of people from different fields to come in with an area of vertical expertise, and someone might be an incredible copywriter.", "start": 127.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 137.44, "text": "So they add a lot of clarity to an interface.", "start": 134.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 149.64, "text": "And then if they pick up more horizontal skills around sort of interaction design or maybe information architecture, then they become a more well-rounded, quote-unquote, full-on product designer.", "start": 138.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 151.8, "text": "And people can do that from the development side, too, right?", "start": 149.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 161, "text": "There's no reason someone that's been building things and has had to deal with interaction issues like feedback, state management, you know, flows and processes couldn't do that.", "start": 151.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 163.4, "text": "What would be the difference between UI and UX?", "start": 161, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 165.4, "text": "That's something that often gets asked.", "start": 163.4, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 175.36, "text": "Yeah, you know, I don't like to get into the semantics, but in general, user experience tries to be very, very broad and cover everything that somebody can encounter with a product.", "start": 165.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 182.16, "text": "Some people go very, very broad with it and cover not just the experience of the product, but the experience of the retail store.", "start": 175.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 198.68, "text": "So if you think of the quintessential example of Apple, they've got retail stores, they've got hardware, they've got software, they've got customer support, they've got a web presence, they have marketing, all that together, in many people's eyes, informs the user experience, which is pretty big, right?", "start": 182.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 199.68, "text": "It's a lot of stuff.", "start": 198.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 200.68, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 199.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 218.6, "text": "And that's why I tend to say, hey, interface design is a little bit more concrete, it deals with software, it sort of deals with interaction design, visual design, content, and I think you can wrap your head around that space a little bit more than you can around user experience sometimes.", "start": 200.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 227.95999999999998, "text": "It seems like sort of the naive understanding of the field is that you have the coders who build a product and then you have a web designer.", "start": 218.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 232.72, "text": "But it seems like that's not really the case anymore, at least for the more sophisticated products.", "start": 227.95999999999998, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 254.92000000000002, "text": "You have designers who might actually draw pictures of how things might look, but the people who try and come up with a flow of tasks, or I guess what you might call the workflow, and what elements are seen on the screen at any given time, and maybe even where they're placed, and how big they are, that's what the UI designer does that, if it's sort of at a bigger firm?", "start": 232.72, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 256.32, "text": "Yeah, it's such a blur.", "start": 254.92000000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 263.36, "text": "At bigger firms, there tends to be kind of, I guess, on the actual UI design side, there tends to be a couple roles.", "start": 256.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 289.44, "text": "So many companies specialize around visual design and creative design, so they've got somebody who's sort of responsible for the look and feel, the brand representation, sort of the overall visceral aspects of the design, then they're likely to have an interaction designer or a UI designer, depending on the title, and that person is responsible for what are the elements on each piece of the flow, how does the flow go, how are they organized.", "start": 263.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 298.4, "text": "Sometimes there's even deeper specialization in that area where you have someone called an information architect whose job is to manage just very large sets of data.", "start": 289.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 301.04, "text": "That's where that usually is most useful.", "start": 298.40000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 311.48, "text": "When you're dealing with very large catalogs, you need to have ways to navigate through them, and you have to have ways to make relationships with it, assign metadata to it, label it appropriately.", "start": 301.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 319.48, "text": "In the early days of the web, this process of sort of information organization and architecture is very important, because most sites were essentially navigation fests, right?", "start": 311.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 324.18000000000006, "text": "You just had a bunch of pages, and the primary user interaction was move between them.", "start": 319.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 329.91999999999996, "text": "So you had to know where you are, where you can go, what other options are there, so information architecture is a lot more important.", "start": 324.18000000000006, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 342.44, "text": "But in today's web, you know, people navigate so organically through things like search and links and feeds that a lot of times that structure is just kind of overkill, and it's the interactions that matter a bit more.", "start": 329.91999999999996, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 349.28, "text": "So I think you're seeing more of a focus on the UI and interaction design than the information architecture, but some companies still specialize.", "start": 342.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 352.26, "text": "So take a site like Craigslist, right?", "start": 349.28, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 356.88, "text": "Is that essentially pure information architecture without any design?", "start": 352.26, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 361.76, "text": "You know, everything is designed whether that design is intentional or not, right?", "start": 356.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 367, "text": "There is no, you know, the alternative to, there is no no design, it's either good design or bad design.", "start": 361.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 377.68, "text": "And some people praise Craigslist's design, that's a double plural there, because, you know, it is that simple, doesn't really have any thrills, it's just here's all the stuff.", "start": 367, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 381.56, "text": "Other people find it overwhelming, and it's just, you know, link fest, they don't know", "start": 377.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 382.56, "text": "where to go.", "start": 381.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 388.68, "text": "And, you know, especially kind of the garishness of some of the postings in there, really turn them off.", "start": 382.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 398.36, "text": "I suppose one question I have for you is, how important do you think the design is to the product making money, which is kind of, I guess, joined to this current discussion about Craigslist?", "start": 388.68, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 400.8, "text": "Well, not so much making money, just being successful is probably better.", "start": 398.36, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 409.4, "text": "Yeah, well, you know, nobody sees the bits underneath the surface, except for web developers who sometimes go to a website and look at view source and check out the code.", "start": 400.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 418.76000000000005, "text": "But to everybody else, the design, and by that, I mean, the full interface, visual and interaction and information, that is the product, right?", "start": 409.40000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 422.6, "text": "So how successful is the product to the product is pretty much very successful.", "start": 418.76000000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 425.44000000000005, "text": "So it's basically 100%, you know, it's the most important thing.", "start": 422.6, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 430.96000000000004, "text": "Yeah, because, I mean, again, nobody's really experiencing it through, you know, your JavaScript code, right?", "start": 425.44000000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 435.40000000000003, "text": "They're not going through things function by function, or actually looking at your markup tags when they're using a product.", "start": 430.96000000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 445.64, "text": "They're using the UI components you have, they're looking at the screen with their eyes, or even if they're in a screen reader, they're using all of the actual content you have in there to read and understand what they can do.", "start": 435.40000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 447.84, "text": "So the design of the product is the product.", "start": 445.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 456.32, "text": "It's interesting, because a lot of the people who listen to our show are bootstrappers and, you know, bootstrapping developers, and usually don't have the money to kind of afford or engage a designer.", "start": 447.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 458.24, "text": "So they end up having to do this, do that themselves.", "start": 456.32, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 473.96, "text": "Yeah, well, it depends, you know, there's many of the software that we use was actually created by developers that have just either a sense of aesthetic, or understand where they have gaps, and fill them through the opinions and testing of others, right?", "start": 458.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 482.68, "text": "I worked with Larry Tesler during my time at Yahoo, he was one of the early engineers on the Mac and kind of the father of cut and paste, right?", "start": 473.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 486.92, "text": "And he was an engineer by training, but he did design work.", "start": 482.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 495.84, "text": "Like he would, I can't remember, I think he was, I'm spacing on his last name, but he was working with someone else, Bill Atkinson, on this feature on the Mac.", "start": 486.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 500.28000000000003, "text": "And during the day, Bill would come in, or during the night, Bill would come in and write code.", "start": 495.84000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 505.16, "text": "And then Larry would come in in the morning, he'd test that code with users and try and get feedback.", "start": 500.28000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 508.96000000000004, "text": "And he was doing it in a very sort of usability engineering kind of way.", "start": 505.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 511.08000000000004, "text": "But it was design work, right?", "start": 508.96000000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 522.08, "text": "And you know, that file edit, or copy and paste is so ubiquitous, and it's considered sort of a design of operating systems, but it was created by engineers.", "start": 511.08000000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 538.64, "text": "It seems to me that what you describe as user experience, and I guess even interface design, is almost less about artistic design as it is in just trying to understand how humans are going to address the product.", "start": 522.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 548, "text": "So it's almost like if you're talking to a salesperson, someone who's an expert in sales, they'll say, okay, look, this is how we want to set up the meeting, this is the things we need to say early on, this is how we manage the relationship.", "start": 538.64, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 555.56, "text": "And they sort of develop this understanding of how an interaction process works and how to make sure that it's going to work out okay.", "start": 548, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 565.48, "text": "And you know, whereas the artistic aspect of like, okay, well, what colors are we going to make things and what fonts are we going to choose, typography and things, is sort of like the next step.", "start": 555.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 570.84, "text": "Like, the first step is just trying to figure out the sort of stages of the experience.", "start": 565.48, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 572.56, "text": "I mean, how do you think about it?", "start": 570.84, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 576.36, "text": "Yeah, like I was saying at the beginning, there's so many layers in all this, right?", "start": 572.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 583.96, "text": "And they all kind of add up, which is why even though it's so easy to go make software on the web, not everything really does very well, right?", "start": 576.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 585.64, "text": "And there's lots of issues around that.", "start": 583.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 593.5600000000001, "text": "But people's impressions are formed so much by what they see and how they go through that flow.", "start": 585.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 597.24, "text": "And that informs, you know, how they use the product, what they get it to do.", "start": 593.5600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 599.6, "text": "And even little considerations can make a huge deal.", "start": 597.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 608.76, "text": "So just to talk about the visual design side of the coin, the first book I wrote, which was, yeah, I guess eight years ago or something like that, was called Sightseeing.", "start": 599.6, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 617.36, "text": "And it was really about, at the time, there was this tension kind of that you're alluding to between design and, I guess, usability.", "start": 608.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 621.76, "text": "So the usability experts were out there saying it must be functional above all else.", "start": 617.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 625.24, "text": "If people can't understand it, they can't use it, it's pointless.", "start": 621.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 633.38, "text": "And there was a design crowd out there that was saying, well, it also has to be, you know, aesthetically pleasing and beautiful and, you know, visuals matter too.", "start": 625.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 640.14, "text": "And so kind of the central thesis of that book that I wrote is that it's the two of the things together.", "start": 633.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 643.42, "text": "And the visual design actually supports the usability.", "start": 640.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 649.54, "text": "Because when you think about how you do visual design, there's essentially two intertwined parts.", "start": 643.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 658.42, "text": "One is, you know, the color selection, the font selection, the image selection, the sort of creating an appropriate personality or brand or look and feel through the visuals.", "start": 649.54, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 660.86, "text": "But the other part is the visual organization.", "start": 658.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 665.02, "text": "If you give something a lot of visual weight, that's the thing people are going to notice.", "start": 660.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 670.14, "text": "If you make things look very similar visually, people are going to group that and associate them together.", "start": 665.02, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 676.38, "text": "If you make things look very distinct, people will think they're separate functions or not consider them as part of the same process.", "start": 670.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 684.86, "text": "And those kinds of visual design decisions play a huge role in usability, in how people can or can't use software.", "start": 676.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 692.22, "text": "Which is why, you know, again, the thesis there was these two things are intertwined and you can't really separate them.", "start": 684.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 697.0600000000001, "text": "And so is Apple the perfect real world example of how that all hangs together?", "start": 692.22, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 698.0600000000001, "text": "Well, interesting.", "start": 697.0600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 711.5, "text": "I just was reading an interview last night in bed on my iPad, ironically, with the former CEO of Apple, John Sculley, talking about how he sort of understood the Steve Jobs method.", "start": 698.0600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 712.5, "text": "Right.", "start": 711.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 718.02, "text": "And one of the points that he made in there was he was talking very recently to someone who was a developer.", "start": 712.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 725.18, "text": "And that developer had back to back meetings with Apple and Microsoft in the same day about whatever service they were doing.", "start": 718.02, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 732.9399999999999, "text": "And when he went to Apple, the people in the room that everybody in the meeting deferred to was the designers.", "start": 725.18, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 735.9399999999999, "text": "When he went to the Microsoft meeting, there was no designers in the room.", "start": 732.9399999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 756.4200000000001, "text": "In fact, I just read something this morning was talking about how Paul Graham's essay on the topic that the reason that Yahoo had so many problems and was passed up by Google was that it lost its hacker-centric culture and sort of the hackers were replaced by suits.", "start": 735.9399999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 762.46, "text": "But the argument that this guy made against that was that, well, Apple is not a hacker-centric culture.", "start": 756.4200000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 770.9, "text": "It's a designer-centric culture that the designers have the final say and they're the ones that are in the room for the big decisions are made.", "start": 762.46, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 774.86, "text": "So in a sense, Apple is winning by design, not by winning by code.", "start": 770.9, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 775.86, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 774.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 781.62, "text": "And, you know, I think that aesthetic carries through down across the whole company, right?", "start": 775.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 791.02, "text": "When they say the designers have the final say, it's the designers have the final say through proxy of Steve Jobs because he gives such a damn about design, right?", "start": 781.62, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 795.38, "text": "And they sort of channel his attention to details and focus on design.", "start": 791.02, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 796.86, "text": "That's how decisions get made.", "start": 795.38, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 801.14, "text": "And places like Google, you know, the founders or the co-founders are engineers.", "start": 796.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 806.62, "text": "And so they sort of channel the value of engineering and technical solutions and things like that.", "start": 801.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 809.3000000000001, "text": "And that kind of is what carries the weight over there.", "start": 806.62, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 810.3000000000001, "text": "Right.", "start": 809.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 811.3000000000001, "text": "And, you know, all these founders.", "start": 810.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 812.3000000000001, "text": "And it's interesting.", "start": 811.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 818.82, "text": "It's a fractal because, you know, the person at the top will hire people who thinks the way that they do and they will hire people who they think who thinks the way they do.", "start": 812.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 821.14, "text": "So essentially that will propagate throughout the company.", "start": 818.82, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 822.14, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 821.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 823.14, "text": "That's how you make culture.", "start": 822.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 824.14, "text": "Right.", "start": 823.14, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 832.8199999999999, "text": "That's why a lot of, you know, the quote unquote suits say culture is really the most important thing in a company is the thing that aligns everybody along some similar vision.", "start": 824.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 837.46, "text": "Otherwise, everybody's running around like a chicken with their head cut off in different directions.", "start": 832.8199999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 842.34, "text": "So they don't have this sort of shared sense of what they're doing.", "start": 837.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 845.74, "text": "So what I'd be curious about is how you got into this field.", "start": 842.34, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 850.38, "text": "I mean, it seems that people who become web designers often start out as graphic designers.", "start": 845.74, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 856.82, "text": "They study design in school and they sort of migrate to the web or at least they did in the past when the web was younger.", "start": 850.38, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 858.98, "text": "But what was your path to getting in this field?", "start": 856.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 861, "text": "Yeah, I was actually pretty similar.", "start": 858.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 873.46, "text": "So I was I actually started out in engineering when I was in undergrad and I did close to a year of engineering that I decided that staying up late coding and this time it was, you know, what was it?", "start": 861, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 876.98, "text": "C sharp was not for me.", "start": 873.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 879.82, "text": "And so I switched over to the art and design program.", "start": 876.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 892.94, "text": "And when I made that switch, I took a internship at NCSA, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, which at the time was where Mark Andreessen was building NCSA Mosaic.", "start": 880.2600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 894.82, "text": "Well, wait, hold on one second.", "start": 892.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 897.7800000000001, "text": "So that first of all, that's really cool that you can get an internship like that.", "start": 894.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 898.7800000000001, "text": "Where were you at?", "start": 897.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 899.7800000000001, "text": "University of Illinois?", "start": 898.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 900.7800000000001, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 899.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 901.7800000000001, "text": "University of Illinois.", "start": 900.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 902.7800000000001, "text": "Champaign-Urbana.", "start": 901.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 904.7800000000001, "text": "Because that's where that that's where the Champaign-Urbana because that's where the supercomputing center is located.", "start": 902.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 905.7800000000001, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 904.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 906.7800000000001, "text": "Exactly.", "start": 905.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 919.42, "text": "So C sharp didn't come out until what, like 2000, around 2000 or so, 2001, 2002, but the Netscape and that whole thing was going on, or at least the first version of the Mosaic browser was what, like 93, 94?", "start": 906.78, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 920.42, "text": "So maybe it was C++.", "start": 919.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 921.42, "text": "I may have my labeling wrong.", "start": 920.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 922.42, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 921.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 923.42, "text": "It was C, C++ and then C sharp.", "start": 922.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 924.42, "text": "Right.", "start": 923.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 925.42, "text": "Is that right?", "start": 924.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 926.42, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 925.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 927.42, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 926.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 928.42, "text": "C sharp came in the 2000s.", "start": 927.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 929.42, "text": "Right.", "start": 928.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 930.42, "text": "So yeah.", "start": 929.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 931.42, "text": "C++ would have been.", "start": 930.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 932.42, "text": "C++.", "start": 931.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 933.42, "text": "That was what I was doing.", "start": 932.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 934.42, "text": "Okay.", "start": 933.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 935.42, "text": "Pre-Java.", "start": 934.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 936.7400000000001, "text": "Pre-Java.", "start": 935.7400000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 942.94, "text": "After this, they started actually teaching Java in the CS departments at University of Illinois.", "start": 936.7400000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 943.94, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 942.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 952.3000000000001, "text": "Because Java was sort of influenced, you know, well, it was influenced probably by a lot of things, but obviously it was influenced by C++ and then C sharp was influenced by Java.", "start": 943.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 953.3000000000001, "text": "But not to get off topic.", "start": 952.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 954.3000000000001, "text": "Just a quick question.", "start": 953.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 959.3000000000001, "text": "Did you know that something big was happening when you were there, like that Marc Andreessen was doing that?", "start": 954.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 960.3000000000001, "text": "Oh, well, yeah.", "start": 959.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 961.3000000000001, "text": "The web was pretty amazing.", "start": 960.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 964.34, "text": "You know, when I came on board, the browser was done.", "start": 961.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 966.7800000000001, "text": "I mean, I wasn't part of the team that actually did Mosaic.", "start": 964.34, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 978.3000000000001, "text": "My mentor at, when I later went on to do grad school, Colleen Bushel, she was actually the designer on, you know, designer in quotes here.", "start": 966.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 981.82, "text": "She was the person from the design background that got involved in that project.", "start": 978.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 987.86, "text": "She's the person responsible for the little spinning navigator that let you know that something was going on.", "start": 981.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 988.86, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 987.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 996.66, "text": "I don't know if you guys use Mosaic, but it had this S with a little globe in the middle and that would sort of spin in the upper right hand corner to let you know page was loading.", "start": 988.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 997.66, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 996.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1000.82, "text": "So that pretty much defined loading concepts in that way.", "start": 997.66, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1001.82, "text": "Still there.", "start": 1000.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1002.82, "text": "Right.", "start": 1001.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1003.82, "text": "You look at any browser, they still have it.", "start": 1002.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1009.46, "text": "IE had that with the spinning IE thing, Netscape did it with the spinning like little lighthouse or whatever.", "start": 1003.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1010.46, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1009.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1011.46, "text": "So she did that.", "start": 1010.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1017.98, "text": "You know, she worked on a lot of the original Chrome stuff there too, with just the whole paradigm of what's home forward and back.", "start": 1011.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1024.42, "text": "But this is actually a really great re-segue or pullback to the first question you guys asked, right?", "start": 1017.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1035.42, "text": "Because Andrew was a developer, Colleen was a designer and he was doing a lot of the decisions that ultimately impacted design coming from a development background, right?", "start": 1024.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1040.22, "text": "I don't know the full story of how back forward and home and all those things kind of came into fruition.", "start": 1035.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1046.58, "text": "But, you know, obviously everything that she did was a collaboration between him and her and the rest of the team over there.", "start": 1040.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1048.4199999999998, "text": "It's funny how you just take that stuff for granted.", "start": 1046.58, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1055.1799999999998, "text": "You kind of feel like it's always been there, but someone had to create those tools when that product was first invented.", "start": 1048.4199999999998, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1056.1799999999998, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1055.1799999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1057.1799999999998, "text": "And I love those stories.", "start": 1056.1799999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1061.86, "text": "I heard another story about how kind of the image tag came to fruition.", "start": 1057.1799999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1064.1799999999998, "text": "And Jeffrey Veen was talking about this recently.", "start": 1061.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1065.6999999999998, "text": "So he was talking about an email exchange.", "start": 1064.1799999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1071.74, "text": "There was like a mailing list early in the day that Tim Bergers-Lee and Mark Andreessen were on.", "start": 1065.6999999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1076.34, "text": "And Mark Andreessen fired off a proposal and said, oh, here's how I'm thinking of doing the image.", "start": 1071.74, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1078.1399999999999, "text": "Other people chimed in with different ideas.", "start": 1076.34, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1082.4199999999998, "text": "And then I guess a week later, he said, OK, I implemented it like this, IMG.", "start": 1078.1399999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1087.06, "text": "And you know, other people chimed in, but he's the one that shipped the code.", "start": 1082.4199999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1093.22, "text": "So it went out there and Veen calls it a rough consensus running code.", "start": 1087.06, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1097.8999999999999, "text": "And it's amazing how many times that that's the thing that actually makes a decision, right?", "start": 1093.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1098.8999999999999, "text": "When somebody just goes and does the thing.", "start": 1097.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1099.8999999999999, "text": "Oh, OK.", "start": 1098.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1100.8999999999999, "text": "It's done.", "start": 1099.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1101.8999999999999, "text": "All right.", "start": 1100.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1102.8999999999999, "text": "It kind of works.", "start": 1101.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1103.8999999999999, "text": "Let's go with that, right?", "start": 1102.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1104.8999999999999, "text": "That's right.", "start": 1103.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1106.98, "text": "That often happens in large companies as well.", "start": 1105.46, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1109.0600000000002, "text": "I've seen that in corporate culture.", "start": 1106.98, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1111.0600000000002, "text": "Basically when you get a doer, he just does it.", "start": 1109.0600000000002, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1115.22, "text": "And then all of a sudden, the corporate company will basically follow the lead of the doer.", "start": 1111.0600000000002, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1118.66, "text": "Well, the major problem is most corporations don't do anything.", "start": 1115.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1119.66, "text": "Right, right.", "start": 1118.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1125.66, "text": "There's a lot of undoers or non-doers, and that's what slows them down so much.", "start": 1119.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1132.3000000000002, "text": "So when you switched over to the design program, I mean, did you have a good sense of design coming in?", "start": 1125.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1135.82, "text": "Did you have someone who was sort of good at drawing or painting as a kid?", "start": 1132.3, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1140.3, "text": "So you that was like a dual sort of talent that you had that you knew going into college.", "start": 1135.82, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1144.26, "text": "So when the engineering wasn't working out as well as you liked, you thought, oh, yeah, I'll just go design.", "start": 1140.3, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1148.06, "text": "Or did you just completely say, hey, I have no idea if I have any talent, but I'm going to try it anyway.", "start": 1144.26, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1150.18, "text": "Yeah, I was always both sides.", "start": 1148.06, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1151.18, "text": "Right.", "start": 1150.18, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1154.74, "text": "When I was working with computers, I was using them to do art.", "start": 1151.18, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1159.06, "text": "Or when I was, you know, back when I was programming basic, you know, who knows when that was.", "start": 1154.74, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1165.8, "text": "But I would use it to make like ASCII art of spaceships launching, using like the little print F commands.", "start": 1159.06, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1168.26, "text": "So I always had this sort of duality.", "start": 1165.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1170.98, "text": "I would definitely not say I'm a very strong artist.", "start": 1168.26, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1176.76, "text": "There's much better illustrators and painters and graphic designers out there than me.", "start": 1170.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1186.94, "text": "I think where I have sort of a good skill set is really the combination of what can the technology do and how can the design support that.", "start": 1176.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1190.8200000000002, "text": "And that's sort of what I've carried with me as I've moved on.", "start": 1186.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1191.8200000000002, "text": "Right.", "start": 1190.8200000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1208.46, "text": "And so when you were working, when you moved over to the design field, I mean, how much of that was just sort of a real abstract sense of design versus I mean, I guess back in when was this was ninety, ninety four, five, six, ninety five, ninety five, ninety six.", "start": 1191.8200000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1215.44, "text": "So that was probably before anyone's really thinking about web design because it was barely even graphical at that point.", "start": 1208.46, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1223.28, "text": "So you learned sort of from just think about things in terms of just standard design of like graphic design, I guess, of any kind.", "start": 1215.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1224.28, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1223.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1225.28, "text": "That's what the training was.", "start": 1224.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1230.24, "text": "You know, we had other tools around kind of learning the digital desktop publishing tool.", "start": 1225.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1235.6000000000001, "text": "So back then we were working on things like Cork Express two or three or whatever it was.", "start": 1230.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1243.24, "text": "And we did a lot of basic design stuff with the stuff that really caught my attention was a lot of the information design work.", "start": 1235.6000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1250.84, "text": "So again, just going back to Colleen Bushel, because she really had a strong influence on me back in my grad and undergrad days.", "start": 1243.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1256.92, "text": "She worked with Edward Tufte, who's written a lot of the quintessential books on information design.", "start": 1250.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1257.92, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1256.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1261.08, "text": "In fact, the one that has kind of the storm cloud animation on the cover, I think it's", "start": 1257.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1264.72, "text": "the visual visual display of quantitative information.", "start": 1261.08, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1265.72, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1264.72, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1266.72, "text": "That's it.", "start": 1265.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1268.64, "text": "So that was the project that she worked with Tufte on.", "start": 1266.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1280.8400000000001, "text": "And, you know, so I think she took a lot from that experience that she passed on down to me and her students just about the information display principles that design enables.", "start": 1268.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1291.2, "text": "And that was what I gravitated to a lot more than, you know, just sort of, I guess, the art and graphic design aspect of things.", "start": 1280.8400000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1300.6000000000001, "text": "I was a lot more interested in the information design and in how you can do layering and separation and move people through information and all that.", "start": 1291.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1304.5200000000002, "text": "And couple that with, you know, all of a sudden there's a digital format for doing that, a.k.a.", "start": 1300.6000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1305.5200000000002, "text": "the web.", "start": 1304.5200000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1307.88, "text": "And that was really, really exciting at the time.", "start": 1305.5200000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1319.3600000000001, "text": "When a coder kind of makes a first draft of something and they don't know anything about design and they don't know how to lay things out or whatever, what would you what is the kind of most common rookie mistakes that you've seen?", "start": 1307.88, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1325.0000000000002, "text": "I think the most common mistakes are there's really no hierarchy and separation.", "start": 1319.3600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1329.88, "text": "You know, everything is sort of equal and everything's fighting for everybody's attention.", "start": 1325.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1337.24, "text": "The really simple rule that I use that I think people that helps people understand this is everybody's screaming, nobody gets hurt.", "start": 1329.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1338.24, "text": "Right.", "start": 1337.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1344.36, "text": "So if you put out a layout and every single button looks exactly the same and there's 20 buttons on it, what do you do?", "start": 1338.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1346.48, "text": "It's difficult for the user to understand which button to click.", "start": 1344.36, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1350.16, "text": "Yeah, there's just no prioritization at all.", "start": 1346.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1351.16, "text": "Right.", "start": 1350.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1359.28, "text": "So we come to each one of our interactions of software is just a set amount of cognitive load that we have to use on that task.", "start": 1351.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1365.8400000000001, "text": "And if you burn it trying to figure out what the heck's going on, then that becomes a pretty frustrating experience pretty quickly.", "start": 1359.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1367.28, "text": "So how do you how do you fix that?", "start": 1365.8400000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1369.64, "text": "What what do you do right to stop that from happening?", "start": 1367.28, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1386.8, "text": "So I think the first thing you can start to think about is, you know, what is the appropriate grouping of the items on this page and how can I use visual information to indicate that so people can use or their natural gestalt understanding of the world to form associations to get understanding.", "start": 1369.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1387.8, "text": "That's kind of one thing is grouping.", "start": 1386.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1390.28, "text": "And the other thing becomes sort of a prioritization.", "start": 1387.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1396.68, "text": "And when you realize what's most important, secondarily important or not really important at this point, the third bucket of stuff just get rid of.", "start": 1390.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1404.1200000000001, "text": "But once you realize sort of what's most important and secondarily important, then you can apply more or less visual weight and to the more important things.", "start": 1396.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1407, "text": "And visual weight is really just about creating contrast.", "start": 1404.1200000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1419.36, "text": "So adding if one thing is red, circular and big and another thing is small, square and gray, guess which one has stronger visual weight because of the contrast, because of the contrast between those things.", "start": 1407, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1425.04, "text": "So you can start to balance how much weight you give things and assign and associate that with the prioritization of what's on the screen.", "start": 1419.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1434.76, "text": "And while all of a sudden you're thinking about design, is there a way to use something that isn't that has low contrast for use?", "start": 1425.04, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1440.52, "text": "Yeah, well, you know, the human eye basically picks out differences between things, right?", "start": 1435.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1442.32, "text": "That's sort of how our brain is wired.", "start": 1440.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1448.12, "text": "So if you have something that's really low contrast and you just have a little bit of contrast that'll pop up.", "start": 1442.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1457.8799999999999, "text": "So if a composition is totally gray, everything is the same shade of gray and then something's a little darker shade of gray that'll pop out because of that difference.", "start": 1448.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1467.76, "text": "So is that like, for example, on the Apple OS in the title bar, you know, for a typical app where they have the name of the document that you currently have open.", "start": 1457.8799999999999, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1476.08, "text": "So it's sort of, it lets you know that the name of the document, but it doesn't completely overtake your eye because it's just a little off the gray of the main bar.", "start": 1467.76, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1479.72, "text": "Yeah, that's actually a pretty common technique.", "start": 1476.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1490.92, "text": "So what you want to, what you can do to set context in applications, this is why a lot of Chrome is gray, is because you want that stuff to recede in the background and let the actual things you're interacting with come forward, right?", "start": 1479.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1503.64, "text": "When you're using say like a Photoshop or what have you, you don't want all of the icons and the tools for that application screaming at you because you want to focus on the photo you're editing or on the page you're designing.", "start": 1490.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1508.76, "text": "So your software shouldn't really get in the way of your framework of what you're doing.", "start": 1503.64, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1515.4, "text": "Yeah, I'm a firm believer that the design shouldn't be in the way of tools and services and things like that.", "start": 1508.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1521.5600000000002, "text": "You know, a great analogy that my friend Jared Spool uses frequently is air conditioning.", "start": 1515.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1528.3600000000001, "text": "You know, when's the last time you were in a meeting and somebody said, Hey, I just, I just want to point out whoever set the air conditioning.", "start": 1521.5600000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1529.3600000000001, "text": "It's just great.", "start": 1528.3600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1531.3600000000001, "text": "You know, not too hot, not too cold.", "start": 1529.3600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1534.2, "text": "You just did a fantastic job.", "start": 1531.3600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1535.2, "text": "Nobody says that, right?", "start": 1534.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1537.24, "text": "When it's working, it's totally invisible to you.", "start": 1535.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1541.1200000000001, "text": "When people talk about the air conditioning is when it's too hot or it's too cold.", "start": 1537.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1543.0800000000002, "text": "When it's working, it's totally invisible.", "start": 1541.1200000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1544.0800000000002, "text": "Same with design.", "start": 1543.0800000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1547.76, "text": "When it's not working, you shouldn't, you know, you shouldn't even know it's there.", "start": 1544.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1552.4399999999998, "text": "So like Facebook is a good example of that in a lot of people go, Oh, but Facebook's so bland.", "start": 1547.76, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1555.84, "text": "But actually the reason why it's bland is so that the content comes out.", "start": 1552.4399999999998, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1560.8999999999999, "text": "So the people's pictures and what people say comes out and you kind of ignore the rest of Facebook.", "start": 1555.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1561.8999999999999, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1560.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1566.1599999999999, "text": "They spend a lot of time tuning the presentation of things, especially the feed.", "start": 1561.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1579.3999999999999, "text": "I think over time as the site has grown, there's definitely areas where they could introduce some hierarchy and contrast to things because there's situations where they're just not taking advantage of that very well, everything's blue and gray and that's it, right?", "start": 1566.1599999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1581.6399999999999, "text": "That's all they have to work with.", "start": 1579.3999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1597.3999999999999, "text": "So I think there's an opportunity for them to tune that a bit more, but the rigor and the detail of things like the way the comments are represented in the feed and the way they call out the action and the feed and all that, I guarantee there's a whole bunch of testing and thinking and reiteration underneath that.", "start": 1581.6399999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1600, "text": "Is space important in design and what role does it play?", "start": 1597.3999999999999, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1602.52, "text": "Well, again, it boils down to the contrast, right?", "start": 1600.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1605.76, "text": "By putting space around something, you call attention to it.", "start": 1602.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1614.64, "text": "Sort of one of the principles underlying how we interpret visual information is that we'll use the empty spaces around things to form groupings and associations.", "start": 1605.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1626.68, "text": "So by introducing space in the right place, you can put focus on particular areas or you can pace people through things or you can create distinctions between elements.", "start": 1614.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1635.96, "text": "A lot of people think, oh, white space, that's for aesthetic effect, but it's actually very important for parsing and for moving people through information in a way that's quick and scannable.", "start": 1626.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1645.16, "text": "And when you just go in and fill in all your white space with content, because you can, you break the ability of people many times to make their way through that information effectively.", "start": 1635.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1647.5600000000002, "text": "Justin, can I ask a few questions?", "start": 1645.16, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1648.5600000000002, "text": "Yes.", "start": 1647.5600000000002, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1649.5600000000002, "text": "Sorry, I've been hooking the line a little bit.", "start": 1648.5600000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1650.92, "text": "Let me just say something, okay?", "start": 1649.5600000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1660.56, "text": "So before this podcast started, Luke, Justin called me up and said, listen, I only slept for two hours last night and I had some fillings replaced, so I have a headache, so you're going to have to carry the show.", "start": 1650.92, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1661.56, "text": "I'm really in a bad mood.", "start": 1660.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1662.56, "text": "And I was like, he's all fired up, he won't even let me talk.", "start": 1661.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1663.56, "text": "He won't even let me ask you a question.", "start": 1662.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1664.56, "text": "So you got him excited.", "start": 1663.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1665.56, "text": "He's like, you know, so okay, so that's good.", "start": 1664.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1666.56, "text": "So, all right.", "start": 1665.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1667.56, "text": "My question is this.", "start": 1666.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1669.56, "text": "I had an idea at one point to write like a blog post that we sort of tutorial-like design or user design 101 for hackers.", "start": 1667.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1670.56, "text": "Because it seems like there's just like a basic idea of what you want to do.", "start": 1669.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1671.56, "text": "You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right?", "start": 1670.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1672.56, "text": "You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right?", "start": 1671.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1673.56, "text": "You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right?", "start": 1672.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1712.36, "text": "And it would seem like something like that would be really useful just to get non-designers who are building software up over a basic bar so they can express themselves in the code or at least their first version of the design before they really even involve a designer.", "start": 1673.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1718.76, "text": "And I was actually going to do this for my, sort of like a, I want this for myself, so I'll use it as a learning experience by writing it.", "start": 1712.36, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1721.28, "text": "This may go on these things that I never end up doing.", "start": 1718.76, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1734.98, "text": "So if you were going to do something like that, what would be your sort of like, you know, what would be the basic elements that you would think a non-designer would need to understand to be a little better at doing that sort of thing?", "start": 1721.28, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1735.98, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 1734.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1743.34, "text": "So we talked about some of those just basic understanding of the visual organization things, which is hierarchy, prioritization, visual weight, all that.", "start": 1735.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1745.46, "text": "And it's not really that rough to do.", "start": 1743.34, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1752.1, "text": "I actually wrote an article many years ago on just some of the basic principles underlying visual organization.", "start": 1745.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1760.54, "text": "So I might be able to save you some typing, but that's kind of step one, right?", "start": 1752.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1774.94, "text": "And then, you know, people, I think really over focus on the color selection and the font selection and all those sorts of things that I'm not denying that that's important, but, you know, ultimately is your site blue or purple, is that really going to make or break it?", "start": 1760.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1775.94, "text": "Probably not.", "start": 1774.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1776.94, "text": "Right.", "start": 1775.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1786.94, "text": "I was working at eBay a number of years ago and then we were building a new product called eBay Express and the design team there made this thing orange, right?", "start": 1776.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1790.1399999999999, "text": "And they had all these supporting arguments about why it was orange.", "start": 1786.94, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1802.3000000000002, "text": "And we went in and presented to the SVP who's funding the project and he, you know, he looked it over, we talked about things and he said, you know, everything's looking pretty good, but, you know, hey, can you come back to me with just a couple of other options on the color scheme?", "start": 1790.74, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1805.0200000000002, "text": "Let me see what else you guys can come up with.", "start": 1802.3000000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1821.66, "text": "So the team went back and instead of just exploring a couple of their color palettes, they created this whole presentation about why it's orange, you know, orange is associated with value and it's a unique color that we can own on the web and this, you know, it's this really important defining thing for the next generation of eBay.", "start": 1805.0200000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1830.1, "text": "And they went back and made some of those arguments and, you know, the SVP said at the end of it, he's like, look, you guys, I just don't fricking like orange, just go", "start": 1821.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1831.1, "text": "change it.", "start": 1830.1, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1840.22, "text": "And personally, I think that was a lot of wasted effort and time on just that color set, right?", "start": 1831.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1843.5, "text": "Because there's so many other more important things like what's the product doing for people?", "start": 1840.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1845.1, "text": "How are they getting through it?", "start": 1843.5, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1846.78, "text": "How's it creating value for the company?", "start": 1845.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1849.54, "text": "How are you going to unramp people into the new product?", "start": 1846.78, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1852.8999999999999, "text": "How can design move them through important flows and all this stuff?", "start": 1849.54, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1859.3799999999999, "text": "There's all this much meatier, more important stuff that actually brings the product to life than whether it's orange or blue.", "start": 1852.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1860.3799999999999, "text": "Does it matter?", "start": 1859.3799999999999, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1863.3, "text": "I know I've asked this before, and sorry, Jason, I'm interrupting.", "start": 1860.3799999999999, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1866.1399999999999, "text": "But once again, does it matter if it looks good?", "start": 1863.3, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1873.52, "text": "Yeah, well, I think there are examples of products that don't look good that are successful.", "start": 1866.1399999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1877.48, "text": "And I think there are examples of products that look very, very good that are successful.", "start": 1873.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1881.8, "text": "People associate themselves with things that they want to kind of represent their personality.", "start": 1877.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1888.16, "text": "And the vast majority of people want to believe they look good, right?", "start": 1881.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1891.48, "text": "And so they want to associate themselves with things that look good.", "start": 1888.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1897.84, "text": "Now, many people have different kind of aesthetics of what is good and what's not.", "start": 1891.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1901.52, "text": "And when you're young, you know, think MySpace, right?", "start": 1897.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1906.84, "text": "The way you think of what looks good is a lot more, I guess, chaotic, if you will.", "start": 1901.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1911.72, "text": "And over time, you sort of hone in on what you actually associate with looking good.", "start": 1906.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1920.8, "text": "But, you know, fundamentally, I think we, as human beings, are sort of attracted to things of beauty.", "start": 1911.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1925.84, "text": "So there's no harm in trying to align with that natural attraction that's in human beings.", "start": 1920.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1927.96, "text": "Sorry, Jason, I interrupted.", "start": 1925.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1928.96, "text": "No, that's fine.", "start": 1927.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1929.96, "text": "It's fine.", "start": 1928.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1939.76, "text": "One of the elements that I was thinking if, you know, if I, like I said, this article, that theoretical article that I may and probably will never write, is the idea of spacing.", "start": 1929.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1948.68, "text": "And I started reading up on something that's called a grid system, which I had never heard of before, but I keep seeing popping up more recently.", "start": 1939.76, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1954.16, "text": "Could you maybe describe, I mean, what exactly is a grid system, and how does that play into sort of organizing a web page or web design?", "start": 1948.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1955.16, "text": "Yeah, yeah.", "start": 1954.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1956.16, "text": "So the grid system...", "start": 1955.16, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1958.16, "text": "Or I guess even just a user interface design at all.", "start": 1956.16, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1959.16, "text": "Sure.", "start": 1958.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1964.16, "text": "So the grid system basically gives you a structure around which to do the visual organization stuff that I was talking about.", "start": 1959.3600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1965.16, "text": "Right.", "start": 1964.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1966.16, "text": "So one of the...", "start": 1965.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1972.3200000000002, "text": "And this all boils down to Gestalt again, and how we perceive things visually.", "start": 1966.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1980.72, "text": "Principles like alignment, proximity, similarity, continuance, spacing, all that stuff flows in.", "start": 1972.3200000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1989.48, "text": "And what you do with the grid system is you basically have an underlying structure that you can lay things against and play into some of those principles, right?", "start": 1980.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2001.48, "text": "So you can have things in close proximity there, you can have continuance, because the grid system lets you go from something that's a 50 by 50 to 100 by 100 to a 200 by 200, and that helps you play with prioritization.", "start": 1989.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2007.72, "text": "At the very least, if you're super basic, don't know anything about any of this stuff, a grid system will at least allow you to align things.", "start": 2001.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2009.92, "text": "Is it an invisible grid system?", "start": 2007.72, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2011.68, "text": "Yeah, you usually don't see it.", "start": 2009.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2019.0800000000002, "text": "Sometimes one or two of the lines you make transparent through background colors or through lines or things like that, but the bulk of it is behind the scenes.", "start": 2011.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2023.44, "text": "So think of it like guides, like you might see guides in Microsoft Word or something like that.", "start": 2019.0800000000002, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2029.68, "text": "It's a kind of guides grid system that's invisible when it's on the finished product, but while you're designing, you've got it to line your little elements up.", "start": 2023.44, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2030.68, "text": "Right.", "start": 2029.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2035.16, "text": "And one of the things that makes stuff really hard to parse visually is no alignment, right?", "start": 2030.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2038.6000000000001, "text": "Or everything is just sort of whacked around.", "start": 2035.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2042.88, "text": "This thing's center aligned, the thing below it's left aligned, and you've got like five other columns.", "start": 2038.6000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2047.88, "text": "It's just very hard to parse that and scan it in the way that we make sense of information visually.", "start": 2042.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2049.12, "text": "Is balance important?", "start": 2047.88, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2056.2400000000002, "text": "For example, if you put a big square box on the top right of the page, should you then essentially have a big square box on the bottom left of the page?", "start": 2049.12, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2064.52, "text": "Well, not if that big square box on the right thing is the number one thing to do on that page and it represents your like big call to action, it makes you tons of money, right?", "start": 2056.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2065.52, "text": "I wouldn't balance it.", "start": 2064.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2070.28, "text": "I would try and put the focus on that one, that one prioritized element.", "start": 2065.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2073.4, "text": "You can see this on like, you know, e-commerce product pages, right?", "start": 2070.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2083.76, "text": "The call to action buy button is this huge high contrast thing generally situated in the kind of middle-ish slash center of the page.", "start": 2073.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2086.96, "text": "And that's, you know, to draw your eye there and have that be the thing you look at.", "start": 2083.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2091.5600000000004, "text": "And ideally it's paired next to the product image because images usually attract our attention.", "start": 2086.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2092.88, "text": "We spend time looking at them.", "start": 2091.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2096, "text": "And if you can make that association, here's the image, here's the buy button.", "start": 2092.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2097.6400000000003, "text": "That's where the eye goes quite frequently.", "start": 2096, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2098.6400000000003, "text": "Interesting.", "start": 2097.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2100, "text": "Interesting.", "start": 2099, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2104.8799999999997, "text": "So that's like an interesting trick that I'd never heard of, put an action near an image.", "start": 2100, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2106.2799999999997, "text": "It depends on the type of image.", "start": 2104.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2107.96, "text": "It's got to be an information rich image.", "start": 2106.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2114.96, "text": "If it's an image that's just like stock photography or seems irrelevant to the content, the task people will just tune it out and ignore it.", "start": 2107.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2123.2799999999997, "text": "And having a call to action associated next to that kind of image can actually make that call to action blend into that image and get ignored too.", "start": 2114.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2124.2799999999997, "text": "Right.", "start": 2123.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2127.64, "text": "There's all sorts of things that we do when we parse information.", "start": 2124.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2135.3599999999997, "text": "Another one that many people get into that's a common mistake is try and make calls to action very, very different, like too different.", "start": 2127.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2141.8799999999997, "text": "And what happens is people generally perceive that as an ad because it doesn't look like anything like the rest of the UI.", "start": 2135.3599999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2146.4, "text": "This is where the subtlety of a designer actually comes into play really strongly.", "start": 2141.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2155.12, "text": "And it's sometimes hard for people who don't have just sort of a background on visual understanding is how much contrast do you lay in there?", "start": 2146.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2163.3199999999997, "text": "But if you think of Amazon.com, basically they have their image on the far left hand side of the page and their call to action on the far right hand side of the page.", "start": 2155.12, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2167.04, "text": "So I guess it's not a steadfast rule, right?", "start": 2163.3199999999997, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2175.2, "text": "You know, as I said at the beginning, the quintessential design answer to everything is it depends because it's all about the context of what's around it, right?", "start": 2167.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2177.12, "text": "And it's all about the context of what else you have on the page.", "start": 2175.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2196.68, "text": "If one site has a really, really strong brand color, like a big red brand color, and that's represented in their banner or their logo or whatever, then they can't necessarily use the same amount of contrast or the same kind of contrast than a site that has a really muted and sort of faded palette for their company brand and logo.", "start": 2177.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2200.6, "text": "And they're playing with a different overall list of things.", "start": 2196.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2214.64, "text": "You know, so the idea of like giving some tips or some structure to how to think about this stuff is, it seems like it's a little difficult because the way you describe it is that design is an art.", "start": 2200.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2219.88, "text": "And I don't mean art, just mean like as in artistic, I mean an art as in, it's not scientific.", "start": 2214.64, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2221.64, "text": "It's not like a bunch of series of rules.", "start": 2219.88, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2233.64, "text": "It really is contextual and it seems like, so what I'm wondering is, is visual design something that few people are ever really going to be good at, no matter how many classes they take.", "start": 2221.64, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2235.52, "text": "It's like, you know, like painting, like an art, right?", "start": 2233.64, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2239.32, "text": "I mean, most people just are not ever going to be good artists, no matter how many art classes they take.", "start": 2235.52, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2241.64, "text": "But like, I mean, just like coding, right?", "start": 2239.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2247.56, "text": "And not everybody's going to be a great developer no matter how much they study computer science or how much code they write.", "start": 2241.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2252.68, "text": "And I think all of these things are both an art and a science and I would take development on the same plane.", "start": 2247.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2253.68, "text": "Right?", "start": 2252.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2261.36, "text": "I mean, you can have all of the scientific rigor around how you're writing your algorithms, how you're optimizing your markup, but every once in a while you need a creative solution,", "start": 2253.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2262.36, "text": "right?", "start": 2261.36, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2266.96, "text": "And you need to have sort of your personal take on how this thing's going to be architected in order for it to work.", "start": 2262.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2277.7200000000003, "text": "Well, I guess one thing you notice about really great coders is their taste, you know, how they organize their code, how they attack the problem, how they think about it.", "start": 2266.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2279.1600000000003, "text": "And I imagine that's the same thing with design.", "start": 2277.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2283.92, "text": "You know, they can know all the, you can know all the rules, but it's really how your brain puts it all together.", "start": 2279.1600000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2288.56, "text": "And it just shows, you know, sort of really good taste versus sort of mediocre taste.", "start": 2283.92, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2290.08, "text": "You learn all the rules so you can break them.", "start": 2288.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2291.08, "text": "Right?", "start": 2290.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2294.92, "text": "You learn the essence of art and music and all that.", "start": 2291.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2304.68, "text": "People that play jazz spend a ton of time learning scales so that when they start playing, they can forget about the scales and, you know, kind of do what fits with the music at the time.", "start": 2294.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2313.12, "text": "But one thing I've noticed about designers and working with professional designers is they all seem to have a style and I can't quite work out if that's a good thing or a", "start": 2304.68, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2314.2799999999997, "text": "bad thing.", "start": 2313.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2315.2799999999997, "text": "I think it's a good thing.", "start": 2314.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2325.5600000000004, "text": "I think, um, we're attracted to things with personality and, you know, take a look at anything that you sort of consider a masterpiece in the world, right?", "start": 2315.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2329.44, "text": "Whether it's an architecture or art or writing or literally, they all have a point of view.", "start": 2325.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2332.7200000000003, "text": "They all have a perspective that they bring to the world.", "start": 2329.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2334.44, "text": "And that perspective is what makes them unique.", "start": 2332.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2343.0800000000004, "text": "Whereas if you think about all the stuff that's really bland and boring in the world, like say corporate websites, in most cases, it's a brochure aware website.", "start": 2334.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2344.1200000000003, "text": "There is no personality.", "start": 2343.0800000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2345.56, "text": "There is no point of view.", "start": 2344.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2350.3199999999997, "text": "It's 50 people all chiming in with their opinion and you can, you can see it, right?", "start": 2345.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2352.12, "text": "It kind of comes through.", "start": 2350.3199999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2364.96, "text": "So having that perspective and that point of view and a design that many times can come from a designer, it doesn't have to, um, it can come from all sorts of different sources, but having a point of view and a perspective and a personality is really, really powerful and important.", "start": 2352.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2373.72, "text": "So is that a good rule of thumb when hiring a designer to, to look through their work and make sure that you like their general concept, their viewpoint?", "start": 2364.96, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2378.6400000000003, "text": "I, um, I think there's two things you should look for when you hire a designer.", "start": 2374.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2382.84, "text": "One is, can they get the big picture behind what you're doing?", "start": 2378.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2385.36, "text": "Do they understand the purpose of what you're doing?", "start": 2382.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2390.2000000000003, "text": "Why you're doing it for who, what are the factors that are involved in making it successful, right?", "start": 2385.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2391.2000000000003, "text": "The big picture.", "start": 2390.2000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2392.2000000000003, "text": "Do they grok the big picture?", "start": 2391.2000000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2407.7200000000003, "text": "And then secondarily, do they have a strong attention to detail, meaning do they, are they really thinking about all the different choices they're making, why they're making them, the considerations they go through, what the impact of those choices is, all the little detailed nuance stuff.", "start": 2392.2000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2424.8, "text": "Because if you know the big picture and you know a little details and everything in the middle sort of works itself out, uh, too many designers, I think, or people who call themselves designers are focused on the middle part and don't have the big picture and don't spend the time and the rigor that they need on the details.", "start": 2407.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2429.1200000000003, "text": "And as a result, they're in the middle and that's sort of the middle Ocraty zone.", "start": 2424.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2433.68, "text": "Um, that's how I would look and try and hire designers.", "start": 2430.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2434.68, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2433.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2441.24, "text": "I have always, I've noticed that detail is kind of very important to, to make you think that something has really high quality.", "start": 2434.68, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2447.04, "text": "It has, it kind of has a little fine details that you wouldn't necessarily notice unless you went looking for them.", "start": 2441.24, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2450.88, "text": "But overall, all the fine details add up to just very high quality.", "start": 2447.04, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2451.88, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2450.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2457.52, "text": "There's a great Charles Eames quote, which is basically, uh, the details are the design,", "start": 2451.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2458.52, "text": "right?", "start": 2457.52, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2462.04, "text": "He's, he's, I think he's, he, he said something like the details don't make the design.", "start": 2458.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2463.6, "text": "The details are the design.", "start": 2462.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2467.7599999999998, "text": "That's how, that's all the choices you make is what leads to the final product.", "start": 2463.6, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2475.08, "text": "And the more meticulous and focused you are in every single one of the details, the more likely you're going to have something that's coherent and structured and aligns to that", "start": 2467.7599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2477.96, "text": "big picture.", "start": 2475.08, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2481.56, "text": "What are some of the designs on the web that you think are the most cutting edge?", "start": 2477.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2495.48, "text": "You know, because it seems like we go through these phases where, um, the, the, what would the style shifts, you know, and I remember when like, um, you know, the 37 signals base camp thing came in and everyone was sort of copying them for a while.", "start": 2481.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2501.7999999999997, "text": "And I'm wondering if you're sensing, you know, a direction or a style that's starting to take hold now.", "start": 2495.48, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2502.7999999999997, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2501.7999999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2507.44, "text": "I think what we're doing is we're maturing the market in general, right?", "start": 2502.7999999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2513.56, "text": "So early on in the web, a lot of people just came on board and did all sorts of things, but now you've got a much bigger audience, right?", "start": 2507.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2518.12, "text": "We're projected to hit 2 billion worldwide by the end of 2010.", "start": 2513.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2527.12, "text": "And as you mature the market and as you get to, um, situations where it's not just about the functionality anymore, it's about the overall experience.", "start": 2518.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2538.84, "text": "You're going to see products that are focused on more or on managing simplicity for you, making things easier to grok, just the sheer competition and the number of things there drives the market to reduction.", "start": 2527.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2553.7200000000003, "text": "So hopefully there's going to be a bit more reductionism and you know, I don't mean that like visually, I just mean that in the amount of overhead you need to go and start using a site or a product as things mature and people understand what the technology does and how it does it.", "start": 2538.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2556.32, "text": "Then it's really focused on that experience more.", "start": 2553.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2559.48, "text": "Are there any, any sites out there now?", "start": 2556.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2568.44, "text": "And I mean more in the terms of applications as opposed to just pure informational sites that you think are really cutting edge right now or setting a new, uh, sort of a new style", "start": 2559.48, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2569.44, "text": "that you think are awesome?", "start": 2568.44, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2573.7200000000003, "text": "Well, it depends on what you define cutting edge, right?", "start": 2569.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2574.7200000000003, "text": "What do you think's awesome?", "start": 2573.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2580.12, "text": "What do I think is I, so I'll be frank with you guys, I, I really hate that question.", "start": 2574.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2584.04, "text": "That was just his question.", "start": 2580.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2591.8, "text": "Everybody asks that question and you know, if you, if, if you, I mean there's lots of things that are really awesome for lots of different reasons, right?", "start": 2584.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2601.8, "text": "And just simply saying, oh, I like that in many cases is really just selling it short what they're doing and why they're doing, uh, why that aspect of things that they're doing is great.", "start": 2591.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2607.76, "text": "Like I'll give you guys just a couple of really small nuanced examples of things I like.", "start": 2601.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2630.5600000000004, "text": "So there's a, I've lately been doing a lot of to do tracking, there's this little site called to do we do list or we do list, um, and it's super bland, doesn't do a lot of things, but it's all around creating to dues and they've used a ton of inline actions and really small interactions that you can add things and stick things in really light and quick.", "start": 2607.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2639.2400000000002, "text": "And I really like that experience for just the immediacy and ability for me to stay in a single page and get a lot of stuff done very quickly and easily.", "start": 2630.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2641.96, "text": "So I like it for its interaction design of to do lists.", "start": 2639.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2642.96, "text": "Okay.", "start": 2641.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2644.76, "text": "And that's, that's one example, right?", "start": 2642.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2653.2400000000002, "text": "You know, all, a lot of other things around that product, maybe they're not the greatest, maybe, um, you know, they have other issues, but that specific aspect of it is actually", "start": 2644.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2654.76, "text": "pretty useful for me.", "start": 2653.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2662.2400000000002, "text": "I was wondering if we could ask you about, um, I guess I'd like to ask you about a couple of your presentations that you've given recently.", "start": 2654.76, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2665.8, "text": "Um, one is you called signup forms must die.", "start": 2662.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2678.32, "text": "Um, and yeah, I'd like to maybe just give us a quick version of that because I think that's a really interesting problem because as web applications, you ultimately need to get a certain amount of information to, to be able to move forward.", "start": 2665.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2680.28, "text": "But yet you've got too much in there.", "start": 2678.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2683.6000000000004, "text": "People seem to get frustrated and not want to go, not even want to use your product.", "start": 2680.28, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2685.68, "text": "So I'll be curious what your take in that is.", "start": 2683.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2686.68, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2685.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2694.7599999999998, "text": "So my central thesis around signup forms must die is, you know, somebody tells you about a website or you get a link, you go and check it out.", "start": 2686.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2698.52, "text": "And what's the first thing you have to do is go fill in a web form, right?", "start": 2694.7599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2702, "text": "Before you can actually use it, before you can actually see what it's doing for you.", "start": 2698.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2704.7999999999997, "text": "Maybe you can take like a tour or any of that kind of stuff.", "start": 2702, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2712.7999999999997, "text": "But you know, step one is, okay, give us your name, give us your email address, agree to our terms of service, agree to our privacy policy, you know, solve this CAPTCHA riddle.", "start": 2704.7999999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2717.96, "text": "And I think that's just a really shitty first time experience for a new product.", "start": 2712.7999999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2731.3199999999997, "text": "Instead, I think it's much better to try and give people a sense of what you can do for them and how with a few lightweight interactions that really explain the product that let you get in there and start using it and see some value immediately.", "start": 2717.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2744.2000000000003, "text": "And then when you get that value, then jump in and you know, say, okay, if you want to continue or you want us to save this or you want to share what you just made or whatever, then we just need a couple of pieces of information so that we can create an account for you to save it.", "start": 2731.3199999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2748.4, "text": "And at that point, you get what it does, you know if it's for you or not.", "start": 2744.2000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2750.68, "text": "And you either become a customer or you don't.", "start": 2748.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2758.92, "text": "And frankly, getting that sign up up front and then just finding out that person's not going to use your product once they figure out what it does is kind of worthless, right?", "start": 2750.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2773, "text": "Is there, are you a little bit at risk of the kind of Amazon one click problem where Amazon kind of had this, they introduced one click and they patented one click, but people didn't really and don't really like it because they can't actually tell that something's happened.", "start": 2758.92, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2780.8399999999997, "text": "So quite a lot of time, if you go to a site that does require a sign up, if you didn't have a sign up, it's a bit of a strange experience to just feel like, you know, am I actually using this app?", "start": 2773, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2782.16, "text": "Like, is my work going to be saved?", "start": 2780.8399999999997, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2783.16, "text": "I mean, what?", "start": 2782.16, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2785.2, "text": "Well, that's a, that's a design question, right?", "start": 2783.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2788.68, "text": "You've got to have the right design that answers those questions for people.", "start": 2785.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2802.96, "text": "Um, you know, I think you can make it awkward and weird that you don't know if you're using it or not, but you can also make it a very, um, sort of gradually engaging experience that makes it very clear what step you're in, what you're doing, how you can go to the next step and things like that.", "start": 2788.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2824.36, "text": "So do you think it would be a reasonable thing that if you had some sort of productivity app that they're going to use to create something, um, some, and you know, like, like you mentioned, like a to do list even or whatever that you just say, Hey, create lists, they go on, they start creating a list and then something comes up and a little pop up or some slide, something slides out or informs them and says, this hasn't been saved.", "start": 2802.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2828.4, "text": "And then at that point, if they hit save, then it asks for your email address and a password or something.", "start": 2824.36, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2829.4, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2828.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2835, "text": "A great example of this that I use in that talk actually is this site called Jeannie G E N I.", "start": 2829.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2838.56, "text": "And you know, there's a bunch of different family tree makers out there.", "start": 2835, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2843.44, "text": "The vast majority of them, their first step is sign in, sign up, you know, create an account.", "start": 2838.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2847, "text": "What Jeannie does right on the first page is, okay, start making a family tree.", "start": 2843.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2848.1600000000003, "text": "Are you male or female?", "start": 2847, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2850.08, "text": "Give us your name and start family tree.", "start": 2848.1600000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2852.2799999999997, "text": "And then the next step you're adding your mother and father.", "start": 2850.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2856.12, "text": "So you're invested, you're, you're invested by the time you even think about signing up.", "start": 2852.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2857.12, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2856.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2858.6, "text": "Within like two clicks, you've already made a family tree.", "start": 2857.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2860.16, "text": "It's like, wallah, you're successful.", "start": 2858.6, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2861.16, "text": "Oh.", "start": 2860.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2864.52, "text": "And by the way, that's the entire purpose of Jeannie to make family trees.", "start": 2861.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2869.64, "text": "So within, you know, a couple interactions, you've done what you came there to do, right?", "start": 2864.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2871.2, "text": "You've been successful.", "start": 2869.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2874.48, "text": "And in the meantime, you learned what the software is and what it does for you.", "start": 2871.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2878.3199999999997, "text": "And you didn't do it by filling in a form and agreeing to a whole bunch of shit up front.", "start": 2874.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2879.3199999999997, "text": "Right.", "start": 2878.3199999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2883.52, "text": "And I think that's, you know, that's a productivity application, making family trees.", "start": 2879.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2884.52, "text": "Sure.", "start": 2883.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2889.88, "text": "Uh, and you can apply that kind of thinking to a lot of different models, right?", "start": 2884.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2896.7200000000003, "text": "And most of the time people don't, they just don't think about the first time experience beyond, Oh, we need to sign up for them.", "start": 2889.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2902.0800000000004, "text": "Oh, and we need to, you know, really drive people to sign up and tell them why they should sign up.", "start": 2896.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2905, "text": "And that's like the extent of their thinking about the first time experience.", "start": 2902.0800000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2908.2000000000003, "text": "Imagine, imagine if everything in the world worked like that.", "start": 2905, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2910.44, "text": "Imagine if you go into a restaurant, right?", "start": 2908.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2914.92, "text": "And they're forcing you to sign up and it's just, it's just crazy.", "start": 2910.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2916.36, "text": "Could it apply to Twitter and Facebook?", "start": 2914.92, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2917.36, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2916.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2918.36, "text": "And Twitter has actually been doing this.", "start": 2917.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2923.32, "text": "Uh, I've talked with a few of the folks at Twitter and they're, they're very on board with this idea of gradual engagement.", "start": 2918.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2931.0000000000005, "text": "In fact, I wrote an article recently about how they applied, uh, some of the gradual engagement principles by adding a step to their signup flow.", "start": 2923.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2937.4800000000005, "text": "And they increased conversion by like 25 to 40% in terms of, uh, engagement, increased engagement.", "start": 2931.0000000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2939.76, "text": "Have you seen a movie called man on a wire?", "start": 2937.76, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2945.92, "text": "Uh, sounds familiar, but it's about a guy who type wrote, walked across the twin towers.", "start": 2939.76, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2964.88, "text": "And uh, one of the things that they do in that is to, to get the, the, this big iron rope across those twin towers is they take a bow and arrow and they shoot across a little a ball of thread and then they pull that, that ball of thread and then that gets a bigger piece of rope and then that gets a bigger piece of rope and gradually they get to this big iron cable.", "start": 2945.92, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2970.84, "text": "This, this whole gradual, um, uh, involvement thing sounds a lot, sounds similar to that as a metaphor.", "start": 2965.28, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2971.84, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 2970.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2972.84, "text": "You can use that in metaphor.", "start": 2971.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2989.46, "text": "And also is that where I stole actually a big piece of that from as a Will Wright, who's the guy who wrote, uh, the Sims and Spore and I saw him give a talk a long time ago where he said in my games, I focus on making people successful in the first five seconds of play.", "start": 2972.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2995.36, "text": "So, you know, in Spore, you're a little creature and within the first five seconds you eat something, you get a little bit bigger.", "start": 2989.46, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2997.1627586206896, "text": "I can do this. ", "start": 2996.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2997.8, "text": "Oh, I'm great.", "start": 2997.1627586206896, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3004.04, "text": "You know, or in Mario, you start up and all of a sudden you get a gold coin right in front of you and you power up.", "start": 2997.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3005.48, "text": "Right.", "start": 3004.48, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3009.44, "text": "So right off the bat, they make you successful and that teaches you how the game works.", "start": 3005.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3013.318260869565, "text": "Because in Spore, for example, you're running around and eating a bunch of stuff at the beginning. ", "start": 3009.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3013.84, "text": "So you grow.", "start": 3013.318260869565, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3016.36, "text": "And you're also a little bit vested, right?", "start": 3014.92, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3017.04, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 3016.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3018.04, "text": "You've already done something.", "start": 3017.04, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3018.6025, "text": "Oh, I got bigger. ", "start": 3018.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3019.04, "text": "Yeah, exactly.", "start": 3018.6025, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3023.96, "text": "So I just like that kind of thinking about engaging people.", "start": 3020.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3024.383333333333, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3023.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3034.2799999999997, "text": "I hate the kind of thinking of we need to create a record set in our database with some name value pairs for, you know, first name, last name, email address, all that crap.", "start": 3024.383333333333, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3042.96, "text": "It's just, I don't know, it's treating people as a as a as a data set in a database rather than a human being.", "start": 3035.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3050.6000000000004, "text": "Let's say you have a website that basically you have a paid product and really that your only real access to that is as a paid product.", "start": 3043.16, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3053.6800000000003, "text": "But would you then go with this?", "start": 3051.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3056.76, "text": "So you'd get to the front page and you could start using that product and you wouldn't.", "start": 3053.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3058.96, "text": "Would you mention that it's a paid product at that point?", "start": 3056.8, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3064.28, "text": "Well, I think this is this is the model a lot of those companies are coming to is they all have sort of a freemium version.", "start": 3059.0000000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3065.667126436782, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3065.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3072.2400000000002, "text": "And a lot of them allow you to start using it, figure out what you're doing, and then within the product, they message you to get into paid features.", "start": 3065.667126436782, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3078.5200000000004, "text": "And the amount of companies that I see moving to that model, to me, indicates that it's actually a decent model.", "start": 3072.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3082.32, "text": "So would you mention anything about paying when you hit the page in the first place?", "start": 3078.76, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3087.28, "text": "I guess what I'm trying to say is, is that sneaky not to mention the paying aspect the first time you hit the page?", "start": 3082.32, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3096.221142857143, "text": "I was talking to a guy from Smug Mug recently in Boston, and he showed me the before and after designs that they did for their service, which is a paid service. ", "start": 3087.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3103.2799999999997, "text": "And the before view had all the stuff about all the different rates and everything and what it was going to be when they redesigned it.", "start": 3096.221142857143, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3104.6, "text": "They totally simplified it.", "start": 3103.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3108.6392452830187, "text": "They got rid of all that upfront information about understanding what kind of account you have. ", "start": 3104.8399999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3109.96, "text": "And they just got you in and going.", "start": 3108.6392452830187, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3116.56, "text": "And he said, you know, the amount of value that they've extracted from that process has been like 200 percent.", "start": 3110.6, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3117.6541176470587, "text": "Wow. ", "start": 3117.3599999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3118.3599999999997, "text": "Interesting.", "start": 3117.6541176470587, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3121.92, "text": "And it's all about, you know, just managing the.", "start": 3119.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3124.8399999999997, "text": "Let me get to put this into a real world perspective.", "start": 3122.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3126.3199999999997, "text": "You go and meet somebody in the street.", "start": 3124.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3126.6339393939393, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3126.3199999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3129.2799999999997, "text": "And you say, hey, I'm going to meet somebody in the street.", "start": 3126.6339393939393, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3131, "text": "And you say, hey, my name's Luke.", "start": 3129.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3133.2000000000003, "text": "First name, last name, email address.", "start": 3131.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3134.2400000000002, "text": "Agree to my terms of service.", "start": 3133.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3134.9620000000004, "text": "Where do you live? ", "start": 3134.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3135.76, "text": "How do I contact you?", "start": 3134.9620000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3139.1200000000003, "text": "You know, it's just totally unnatural.", "start": 3136.1200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3139.5315151515156, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3139.1200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3143, "text": "Instead, there's an actual conversation there that happens.", "start": 3139.5315151515156, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3145.76, "text": "And there's this gradual process by which you get to know that person.", "start": 3143, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3148.4, "text": "You decide if you want to talk to them ever again or not.", "start": 3145.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3158.6400000000003, "text": "That would be a great viral video of saying that if people were web forms or web apps, you know, enjoying all the mistakes as just real people, this is how", "start": 3149, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3159.470649350649, "text": "they behave. ", "start": 3158.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3164.2985915492955, "text": "Actually, that is a methodology that you can, once again, circle back to the beginning. ", "start": 3159.470649350649, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3165.8399999999997, "text": "We're talking about what can some developers do?", "start": 3164.2985915492955, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3177.72, "text": "There's actually a really great exercise that I've seen a number of folks do where you just put like a browser Chrome around one person and they respond the way the interface responds to a human being.", "start": 3166.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3179.56, "text": "They try to have a conversation.", "start": 3178.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3186.4, "text": "So I saw somebody do this recently around like an event planning forum and one person was acting out the role of the forum.", "start": 3180.6, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3188.24, "text": "The other person was acting out the role of a human being.", "start": 3186.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3195.3199999999997, "text": "And so a human being comes up to the forum and says, hey, you know, I'm thinking of maybe having an event at your location and the farmer's first name.", "start": 3188.7999999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3201.408571428571, "text": "And the guy says, oh, you know, well, do you guys actually what kind of size groups can I have here? ", "start": 3196.6, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3201.8799999999997, "text": "First name.", "start": 3201.408571428571, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3204.2799999999997, "text": "OK, I guess I'll give you my first name.", "start": 3202.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3207.2799999999997, "text": "When can I find out how what kind of group I had here?", "start": 3204.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3208.227692307692, "text": "Last name. ", "start": 3207.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3210.64, "text": "And you just start laughing.", "start": 3208.227692307692, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3211.3773134328353, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3210.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3215.64, "text": "But really quickly, you realize how those interactions work.", "start": 3211.3773134328353, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3217.92, "text": "And it's sad, but it's true.", "start": 3216.8399999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3219.504615384615, "text": "That's great. ", "start": 3218.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3220.04, "text": "Interesting.", "start": 3219.504615384615, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3220.382857142857, "text": "It's great. ", "start": 3220.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3221.04, "text": "Yeah, it's pretty good.", "start": 3220.382857142857, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3234.96, "text": "Well, so another another presentation that I found interesting of yours and I haven't had a chance to watch the video, but I was looking at the slides and it looks it's very timely for me because I actually have a couple of mobile projects that I'm going to be starting.", "start": 3221.2, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3258.12, "text": "And the title of the presentation was Mobile First, as in the fact that rather than people design or rather than designers, developers thinking the website first and then the the the mobile app as sort of like a retrofitting that onto or trying to take the web experience and put it on the mobile app, they're thinking the mobile first as experience.", "start": 3234.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3262.44, "text": "And I mean, you know, I'd love to hear your your sort of talk on that.", "start": 3258.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3269.24, "text": "Well, I think I think you nailed the crux of the argument, which is traditionally the desktop version is done first and the mobile support.", "start": 3262.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3272.96, "text": "But there's a lot of reasons why the inverse actually makes more sense.", "start": 3269.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3280.04, "text": "And the kind of three that I call out in the presentation I've been talking about a lot, I've been giving this talk across a number of different places.", "start": 3272.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3286.92, "text": "The first one is, hey, mobile is just really exploding right now and taking advantage of that opportunity.", "start": 3280.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3294.56, "text": "I think the mobile Web, according to Morgan Stanley's Internet research, is growing eight times faster than the original Web group, which is just nuts.", "start": 3286.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3302, "text": "And every study after study, you see that those those those numbers are not only coming true, they're actually moving faster.", "start": 3294.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3307.76, "text": "So there's a huge opportunity, huge growth to mobile has these natural constraints.", "start": 3302.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3309.12, "text": "The screen size are small.", "start": 3307.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3310.36, "text": "The connections are crappy.", "start": 3309.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3320.88, "text": "People are using a single thumb, which very much forces you to prioritize, constrain and figure out what the core value you're giving people is at each point in the process of your application.", "start": 3310.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3326.3161904761905, "text": "When you got ten, twenty four by seven, sixty eight, you can fit a lot of shit on that page. ", "start": 3321.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3327.04, "text": "I'm sorry.", "start": 3326.3161904761905, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3327.723076923077, "text": "Should I be swearing? ", "start": 3327.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3328.6, "text": "Maybe I shouldn't be swearing.", "start": 3327.723076923077, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3329.281818181818, "text": "No, it's fine. ", "start": 3328.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3331.6, "text": "As long as you're swearing at Justin, swear at him.", "start": 3329.281818181818, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3335.36, "text": "OK, I think she likes that word.", "start": 3332.04, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3336.48, "text": "Just don't go any deeper.", "start": 3335.36, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3338.04, "text": "OK, I won't go any deeper.", "start": 3336.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3338.68, "text": "What can you say?", "start": 3338.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3338.9476923076923, "text": "Crap. ", "start": 3338.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3342.545, "text": "At ten, twenty four by seven, sixty eight, you can fill a lot of crap in there. ", "start": 3338.9476923076923, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3344.8, "text": "Most of what people put in there is crap.", "start": 3342.545, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3357.68, "text": "When you go down to like a 320 by 480 or standard ish mobile screen, you got to throw away 80 percent of the stuff you had on the screen, which means you need to have a real clear understanding of what needs to be on that screen and why.", "start": 3345.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3362.64, "text": "And that requires focus that requires prioritization, which is all just good for design in general.", "start": 3358.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3366.08, "text": "You know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.", "start": 3363.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3366.36, "text": "Go on. ", "start": 3366.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3368.8399999999997, "text": "I'm just going to give you the third part of why mobile first.", "start": 3366.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3379.8399999999997, "text": "The third part of mobile first is having a device that's in your pocket and it has all the sensors and capabilities that these devices have actually introduces a lot of opportunities for innovation.", "start": 3369.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3383.56, "text": "You know, people's exact location down to 10 meters, right?", "start": 3380.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3386.2799999999997, "text": "They have embedded cameras so you can do video.", "start": 3383.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3388.08, "text": "They have embedded audio controls.", "start": 3386.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3389.7999999999997, "text": "They have touch based controls.", "start": 3388.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3393.96, "text": "They have digital compasses that know the orientation of the user.", "start": 3389.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3395.0800000000004, "text": "They have accelerometers.", "start": 3393.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3396.7200000000003, "text": "You can tell how the device is oriented.", "start": 3395.0800000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3409.6400000000003, "text": "Having all those capabilities in front of you lets you just really start rethinking what your service can do and how you can present the same information to people using those capabilities, which is great for thinking of new ideas and new experiences.", "start": 3397.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3411.386046511628, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3410.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3423.8, "text": "One thing that I like about building mobile apps, I feel like because it limits what you can do, it's it's it's makes it easier not to screw up as much as long as you know what the interaction is supposed to be.", "start": 3411.386046511628, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3426.76, "text": "It seems like when you have an entire Web page, it's like, OK, I want to do this.", "start": 3423.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3428.6, "text": "But now what do I do with all this extra space?", "start": 3426.76, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3432.04, "text": "And, you know, just sort of like, OK, well, this is clearly a table view.", "start": 3428.88, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3432.3781249999997, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3432.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3434.48, "text": "And I click on something and then something else happens.", "start": 3432.3781249999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3438.68, "text": "It just seems from a non-artist perspective, it's just a little less daunting.", "start": 3434.48, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3442.52, "text": "Yeah, it's it's it's a lot simpler, you know, but at the same time, it's harder.", "start": 3438.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3442.903333333333, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3442.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3455.4, "text": "I mean, it forces you to get to simplicity, but it also really focuses you on nailing the tasks because the mobile environment is a lot more of a task focused environment than it is a browse or navigate kind of environment.", "start": 3442.903333333333, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3463.208372093023, "text": "In fact, you don't want to browse around and navigate too much on mobile devices because you've got low connectivity, you don't have a lot of time, you're trying to get stuff done. ", "start": 3455.7599999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3470.48, "text": "And so you have to have that rigor of making sure that process of getting things done on mobile accounts for all those constraints.", "start": 3463.208372093023, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3472.1715662650604, "text": "But does that mean. ", "start": 3470.88, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3476.24, "text": "OK, but so now let's let's have a look at the inverse equation.", "start": 3472.1715662650604, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3479.5600000000004, "text": "A lot of apps were created for the iPhone and then along comes the iPad.", "start": 3476.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3485.6400000000003, "text": "Now, people had a lot more screen real estate, so they had to then rethink and make use of that new screen real estate.", "start": 3480.1600000000003, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3487.8, "text": "So how does your theory work regarding that?", "start": 3485.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3505.0800000000004, "text": "Well, perhaps non-ironically, one of the first guidelines in the iPad development guideline is just because you got more screen real estate, don't get rid of all the simplicity that you had in your iPhone app and don't, you know, don't start adding features and all this other stuff just to craft it up.", "start": 3487.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3516.16, "text": "I think what you are then able to do is introduce stuff that makes those interactions you had in the iPhone more contextually relevant or more engaging or more active.", "start": 3506.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3516.5640909090907, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3516.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3522.4167441860463, "text": "The iPad in general, this you have this whole conversation about like the context of different devices. ", "start": 3516.5640909090907, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3526.7872, "text": "So I think that's a big topic right now that a lot of people are wrestling with. ", "start": 3522.4167441860463, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3528.7999999999997, "text": "But the iPad is a leanback device.", "start": 3526.7872, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3536.4437209302328, "text": "It's like a casual ish, more content consumption driven experience than say something like the iPhone. ", "start": 3529.1200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3538.04, "text": "So it's study after study.", "start": 3536.4437209302328, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3544.52, "text": "What you see is people use the iPad on the couch or they use it before they go to bed at night, which I actually did last night to read and they use it to read things.", "start": 3538.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3545.6400000000003, "text": "They use it to browse.", "start": 3544.52, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3552.6000000000004, "text": "So the kind of design and the kind of interaction you have for those contexts is pretty different than the kind of context you have.", "start": 3546.1600000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3557.115068493151, "text": "Hey, I got my iPhone in my pocket and I'm trying to get to, you know, a restaurant right now. ", "start": 3552.6000000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3561.4, "text": "Very different use case than I'm thinking of having a trip to Paris.", "start": 3557.115068493151, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3567.8, "text": "Let me play with the maps and explore it like you might do on an iPad in a different context, a different UI.", "start": 3561.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3574, "text": "And that's a much bigger issue than just adding stuff when you move to that device.", "start": 3568.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3575.396923076923, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3574.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3575.2430769230773, "text": "Right.", "start": 3574.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3579.6400000000003, "text": "You have one presentation.", "start": 3577.4, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3580.6400000000003, "text": "Let me get the name of it here.", "start": 3579.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3595.1600000000003, "text": "That was sort of a combination of the previous two that we just described, which is called Moving Beyond Input, Moving Beyond Forms, an overview of how Web applications can collect input through both mobile devices and desktop software, et cetera.", "start": 3580.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3597.4400000000005, "text": "You know, this seems like it brings some of these concepts together.", "start": 3595.5200000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3599.6000000000004, "text": "If you wouldn't mind talking just a little bit about that one as well.", "start": 3597.4400000000005, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3600.4550000000004, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 3599.9600000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3610.2000000000003, "text": "So that one is focused really on we need to start thinking about ways that people can interact with our services, both online and offline.", "start": 3600.4550000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3612.92, "text": "Let me back up a second.", "start": 3611.9600000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3623.8, "text": "Contribution is just a hugely important thing for software, especially social software, which is kind of what all software is going to become over time, I think, because it's fundamentally boils down to people.", "start": 3613.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3624.128275862069, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3623.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3625.16, "text": "And people use things.", "start": 3624.128275862069, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3630.28, "text": "And so in that kind of environment, contribution is really important.", "start": 3626.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3637.32, "text": "And once again, you know, the default thinking around contribution and software has been so far input elements and forms and things like that.", "start": 3630.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3640.2400000000002, "text": "Yet we have all these new capabilities coming to us.", "start": 3637.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3644.8, "text": "We have all these opportunities to create different kinds of startup experiences, not just sign up forms.", "start": 3640.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3653.2400000000002, "text": "And so, you know, let's kind of go a little bit above the default thinking and kind of approach the problem from a different way.", "start": 3645.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3657.5814634146345, "text": "It's essentially the last part, the part three of the mobile first talk that we talked about. ", "start": 3653.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3661.2400000000002, "text": "And the sign up form was died, kind of combined into one, as you suggested.", "start": 3657.5814634146345, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3664.1600000000003, "text": "You're working on a stealth startup.", "start": 3661.8, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3670.36, "text": "And I know that it's, I guess, given the fact that you listed as stealth, does that mean there's nothing you can say about it?", "start": 3664.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3671.3386363636364, "text": "Not yet. ", "start": 3670.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3680.04, "text": "I can say we're chugging along to a little bit of an alpha software release and we've got some users in the system trying to break it for us.", "start": 3671.3386363636364, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3682.8, "text": "Well, I mean, is it web software or is it desktops?", "start": 3680.7599999999998, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3683.88, "text": "I mean, is it mobile? ", "start": 3682.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3685.96, "text": "Is it, you know, it's yeah, it's everywhere.", "start": 3683.88, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3687.96, "text": "You know, that's sort of what the web is these days.", "start": 3686.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3693.24, "text": "We have yet to make a TV version, but we've been focused on all the other versions.", "start": 3688.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3694.417142857143, "text": "Interesting. ", "start": 3693.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3694.727912087912, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3694.417142857143, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3697.88, "text": "So when can we expect to see something from hopefully in the next month", "start": 3694.727912087912, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3699.6400000000003, "text": "or so, we'll be popping that out.", "start": 3697.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3702.1600000000003, "text": "How long have you been working on the software?", "start": 3700.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3704.6400000000003, "text": "On software period or on this?", "start": 3703, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3707.28, "text": "Well, just say, yeah, yeah, I guess the startup thing.", "start": 3704.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3708.0525842696634, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 3707.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3715.32, "text": "So I left Yahoo at the beginning of April and I think we started kind of headstrong on this towards the beginning of June.", "start": 3708.0525842696634, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3724.36, "text": "So about four or five months ish from, you know, company formation, idea generation, picking an idea, starting to build it, design, test.", "start": 3715.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3726.1600000000003, "text": "Are you the founder or co-founder or?", "start": 3724.4, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3727.2400000000002, "text": "Yeah, I'm a co-founder.", "start": 3726.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3730.76, "text": "I have two partners, one on the technical side and one on the business side.", "start": 3727.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3732.92, "text": "And I'm sorry, I missed the part.", "start": 3731.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3735.5200000000004, "text": "When is when are you going to release sort of some public data?", "start": 3732.92, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3737.5600000000004, "text": "Hopefully in the next month or so.", "start": 3736.0400000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3740.0800000000004, "text": "You know, we'll release it when it's ready.", "start": 3738.2000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3741.6400000000003, "text": "Does it have a name? ", "start": 3740.8, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3742.7200000000003, "text": "Does it have a public name?", "start": 3741.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3747.4, "text": "We have a working name right now, so I'm hesitant to put it out there just yet.", "start": 3743.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3748.48, "text": "But OK, that's fine.", "start": 3747.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3750.306666666667, "text": "It's called Google. ", "start": 3749.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3751.32, "text": "Yeah, that's right.", "start": 3750.306666666667, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3757.88, "text": "Um, before that, I saw in your bio that you were an entrepreneur residence at Benchmark Capital.", "start": 3752.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3759.6000000000004, "text": "I'd be really curious.", "start": 3758.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3760.6000000000004, "text": "Oh, you still are.", "start": 3759.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3761.48, "text": "They're still there.", "start": 3760.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3764.36, "text": "Oh, so they're so Benchmark is incubating this startup.", "start": 3761.84, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3772.96, "text": "Is that the entrepreneur residence role is kind of designed to get people into their next thing, especially in the startup space.", "start": 3764.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3773.3146666666667, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3772.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3778.2606666666666, "text": "So some people that take an EIR role go and join an existing startup in a company's portfolio. ", "start": 3773.3146666666667, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3781.56, "text": "But a lot of them mostly go on to start startups.", "start": 3778.2606666666666, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3781.792615384615, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3781.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3783.72, "text": "So that's kind of the process I'm going through right now.", "start": 3781.792615384615, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3789.616170212766, "text": "OK, so when you do start working on a startup, then you're still considered an entrepreneur residence. ", "start": 3784.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3800.929411764706, "text": "I sort of thought that when you were an entrepreneur residence, you were sort of in between gigs, so to speak, that you were participating in on evaluating, you know, deals that were coming in. ", "start": 3789.616170212766, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3801.48, "text": "Is that true?", "start": 3800.929411764706, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3802.88, "text": "Yes, that is all true.", "start": 3801.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3805.68, "text": "They do it in kind of six month increments.", "start": 3803.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3813.76, "text": "OK, so, you know, I mean, I got a six month engagement there and during part of it, I was a lot more focused on what you're talking about.", "start": 3806.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3817.5600000000004, "text": "And during the latter half, I've been a lot more focused on actually building, building a", "start": 3813.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3818.0957142857146, "text": "product. ", "start": 3817.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3822.992, "text": "So how does that work before you start working on your actual startup, your startup? ", "start": 3818.0957142857146, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3827.052903225807, "text": "Well, first, I'd like to ask, how did how do you even become an entrepreneur resident? ", "start": 3822.992, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3829.2000000000003, "text": "That seems like a pretty cool gig if you can get it.", "start": 3827.052903225807, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3830.009655172414, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 3829.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3835.6691764705884, "text": "As many things happen in Silicon Valley, it's through the strength of kind of our network. ", "start": 3830.009655172414, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3844.44, "text": "So my partner in the current startup, Semplar, he was an EIR who worked with one of the partners at Benchmark Capital previously.", "start": 3835.6691764705884, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3847.56, "text": "So through that relationship is kind of how we made that happen.", "start": 3845.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3848.5107692307693, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3848.2, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3857.52, "text": "And do you when you're doing that before you're working on your startup, I mean, are you getting paid a real salary or are you just kind of there's a kind of like thing working like a graduate stipend kind of thing?", "start": 3848.5107692307693, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3860.76, "text": "Yeah, we've we've been bootstrapped up until now.", "start": 3857.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3863.36, "text": "So the three of us have not been taking any salary as a startup.", "start": 3860.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3865.1200000000003, "text": "Oh, so you're an entrepreneur resident.", "start": 3863.88, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3866.28, "text": "You're not even getting paid, really.", "start": 3865.1200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3866.8521212121213, "text": "Oh, no. ", "start": 3866.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3868.6400000000003, "text": "That depends on per firm.", "start": 3866.8521212121213, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3869.1256410256415, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3868.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3869.357435897436, "text": "OK. ", "start": 3869.1256410256415, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3873.2400000000002, "text": "It really matters on the VC firm whether or not they're paying you.", "start": 3869.357435897436, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3878.446511627907, "text": "Many of them will give you, you know, space to work and support to the network and rely on you. ", "start": 3873.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3880.4, "text": "Some of them have paid engagements.", "start": 3878.446511627907, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3881.44, "text": "Other ones don't.", "start": 3880.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3882.221960784314, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3881.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3884.1200000000003, "text": "It's part of the actual startup we're doing.", "start": 3882.221960784314, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3889.76, "text": "We are using founder money right now and not taking a salary.", "start": 3884.1200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3905.338909090909, "text": "So did you when the relationship, the entrepreneur residence situation started for you, was it the conversation that you have an idea or you and a couple of your co-founders or potential co-founders have an idea and you're going to work it out over the next few months? ", "start": 3890.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3907.8, "text": "Or do they just say, hey, come jump in with us.", "start": 3905.338909090909, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3908.674666666667, "text": "We'll see what happens. ", "start": 3907.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3909.44, "text": "I mean, how did that.", "start": 3908.674666666667, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3911.5200000000004, "text": "More of the latter than the former.", "start": 3910.1600000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3911.962272727273, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3911.5200000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3917.8262686567164, "text": "You know, we started our company started out as a team first, a market second and idea third. ", "start": 3911.962272727273, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3920.88, "text": "So that's sort of the process we've been going through.", "start": 3917.8262686567164, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3924.72, "text": "That's an interesting that's an interesting way to do it.", "start": 3921.92, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3928.72, "text": "So I guess you had a lot of whiteboard brainstorming sessions about, OK, what are we", "start": 3924.7599999999998, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3929.4584615384615, "text": "going to make? ", "start": 3928.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3931.92, "text": "We had a long list of things that we wanted to do.", "start": 3929.4584615384615, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3932.3312359550564, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3931.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3939.92, "text": "You know, at first our exploration was what space do we think actually makes sense for us given the type of opportunity we want to go after.", "start": 3932.3312359550564, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3943.4, "text": "So there's a lot of debate and conversation around that.", "start": 3940.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3951.53, "text": "And once we sort of nailed the space and everybody felt really good about the opportunity there, then we went through a lot, a large number of iterations on actual ideas. ", "start": 3943.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3955.6, "text": "And it took us a while to settle in on the concept we're going for right now.", "start": 3951.53, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3959.84, "text": "And, you know, it's always as with all things startup, everything is always in flux.", "start": 3955.6, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3962.6, "text": "How did you test your market assumptions?", "start": 3960.36, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3964.6800000000003, "text": "Well, we're testing them right now.", "start": 3963.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3967.114285714286, "text": "OK, cool. ", "start": 3966.6, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3969.48, "text": "You don't have to test the market assumptions.", "start": 3967.114285714286, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3972.64, "text": "You can just basically say, hey, this market has this and this opportunity.", "start": 3969.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3974.04, "text": "Here's this and this space to play.", "start": 3972.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3974.539333333333, "text": "Right. ", "start": 3974.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3978.3199999999997, "text": "That's this relatively easy to model at a high level.", "start": 3974.539333333333, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3983.236049382716, "text": "What you need to do is really say is do we have a viable thing to address that market or not? ", "start": 3978.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3989.7599999999998, "text": "And today, I think really that's tested by putting people into a product and seeing what they do and how they react.", "start": 3983.236049382716, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4001.76, "text": "Is there somewhere that doesn't give anything away where listeners of this show could basically send an email to you saying, hey, when you've got something, I'm interested in knowing what the hell it is.", "start": 3990.16, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4008.2733333333335, "text": "Yeah, they can go to BagCheck.com and enter their email address on there and we'll ping them over sometime. ", "start": 4001.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4009.6400000000003, "text": "It might take a bit, but we'll ping them.", "start": 4008.2733333333335, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4011.96, "text": "You said BagCheck as in?", "start": 4010.48, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4014.92, "text": "Yeah, as in B-A-G-C-H-E-C-K.", "start": 4011.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4027, "text": "OK, it's important that people know how to spell because my product that I've been working on, our bootstrapping Appignite, everybody at like as an ignite an application, everyone thinks it thinks we're saying Epic Knight.", "start": 4015.5200000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4029.28, "text": "Yeah, we actually have it.", "start": 4027.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4030.76, "text": "We actually have a spellable word.", "start": 4029.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4038.04, "text": "In fact, someone actually thought we someone actually thought I don't know if they said this jokingly or not. ", "start": 4032.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4039.76, "text": "They thought we were saying a pig at night.", "start": 4038.04, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4043.2, "text": "So, yeah, the choice of naming.", "start": 4041.2, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4044.0283544303797, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 4043.6, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4049.24, "text": "So I'm just going to bag B-A-G-C-H-E-C-K.com and I'm entering in my email", "start": 4044.0283544303797, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4050.0633333333335, "text": "address right now. ", "start": 4049.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4050.8, "text": "OK, there you go.", "start": 4050.0633333333335, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4053.08, "text": "So, Justin, do you have any more questions?", "start": 4051.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4057.12, "text": "I think I think that's that's been a really informative show.", "start": 4053.08, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4063.56, "text": "In actual fact, I'm going to all of my developer friends, I'm going to forward them to this because this to me has been the 101.", "start": 4057.12, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4069.36, "text": "If you're if you're like a bootstrapper and a solo developer, this show will what we've discussed so far.", "start": 4063.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4082.72, "text": "Even if you're not a solo developer, I mean, if you're part of a small startup or even you're working on an internal team and you're trying to make your product better, I mean, everything that he's that Luke is saying and all the things that he's trying to teach you through his presentations apply to any size company.", "start": 4069.36, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4083.1933333333336, "text": "So, yeah. ", "start": 4082.76, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4087.7200000000003, "text": "And also, I wouldn't say just in general, I don't think our market is just bootstrappers, our listeners.", "start": 4083.1933333333336, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4089.5600000000004, "text": "I think we got a lot of people who aren't bootstrappers.", "start": 4087.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4099.12, "text": "So, OK, I don't I think there are a lot of people I can tell by the people who list by the comments we get that there's a range of people who do kind of things I described and probably a lot of other things.", "start": 4089.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4101.360000000001, "text": "So I've been told you've told me.", "start": 4099.12, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4102.068571428572, "text": "OK. ", "start": 4101.72, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4114.670476190477, "text": "The other thing I'd say is if you go to Luke's site, which is Luke W dot com, he has a lot of writings that are, you know, like, I guess, PDFs or pages or, you know, just HTML. ", "start": 4102.068571428572, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4120.035, "text": "But if you go to his presentation section, there are PDFs and videos that he's given. ", "start": 4114.670476190477, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4121.56, "text": "And they look great.", "start": 4120.035, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4124.72, "text": "So all these things that we talk about, mobile first, sign up forms must die.", "start": 4121.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4133.76, "text": "And there's about like, I don't know, like 20 or 30 of these things look like they're very much worth sitting, take some time and watching.", "start": 4125.04, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4137.64, "text": "If you want to burn a weekend or two on PowerPoint, there you go.", "start": 4134.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4138.4930232558145, "text": "Yeah. ", "start": 4138.200000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4152.160000000001, "text": "Well, I'll probably watch the video, but I'm telling you, you know, because, you know, as someone who's creating a, you know, a web application and mobile apps, I'm, you know, I I'm very confident my ability to create and write code.", "start": 4138.4930232558145, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4155.160000000001, "text": "And I'm fairly confident my ability to create a decent user experience.", "start": 4152.160000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4161.4800000000005, "text": "But the design aspect and honing the user experience of all these things is I, you know, I definitely could use some work.", "start": 4155.160000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4164.12, "text": "So I think what you're teaching here is extremely valuable.", "start": 4161.4800000000005, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4171.599999999999, "text": "So everybody, if you're interested and you think you need to work on this stuff or think, you know, go to Luke W dot com and check it out.", "start": 4164.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4174.4, "text": "Luke, it's been absolutely fantastic to have you on the show.", "start": 4172.08, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4175.4816, "text": "Thank you very much. ", "start": 4174.44, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4176.92, "text": "Thank you guys for having me.", "start": 4175.4816, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4177.617333333334, "text": "It's been great. ", "start": 4176.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4177.926666666666, "text": "Thanks. ", "start": 4177.617333333334, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4178.12, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 4177.926666666666, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4178.78, "text": "Thank you. ", "start": 4178.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4179.92, "text": "Really great video.", "start": 4178.78, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4181.1808, "text": "All right. ", "start": 4180.599999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4181.92, "text": "That's a wrap.", "start": 4181.1808, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4182.5599999999995, "text": "We're out.", "start": 4182.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}], "transcriptBySpeakers": [{"end": 37.303225806451614, "text": "Welcome to episode 87 of TechZing, hosted by myself, Justin Vincent, and Jason Roberts. On today's show, our guest is Luke Wroblewski, who's a user experience expert, and whose work has reached more than 700 million people worldwide. Luke is also an entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital. Hey, Luke, welcome to the show.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 38.7408, "text": "Hey, how are you guys doing?", "start": 38.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 66.79692307692308, "text": "So as a show that's primarily about tech and startups, we've interviewed a lot of technologists and entrepreneurs, but you're actually the first UI expert that we've had on the show. So I suppose the first question I'd like to ask you is if you could give us a little bit of an overview of the design field as it stands. I mean, there are web designers, there's user experience, UI experts, and I don't know, I guess I'd just like to get a better understanding of what are all the roles and how do you see it currently?", "start": 40.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 156.21662528735632, "text": "Yeah, you know, it really, the quintessential design answer to every question is it depends. And so I'll sort of start off with that answer, because it really does depend on who you ask and what profession and kind of background they come from. The design profession, especially with interactive software, a lot of people came to it from a large diversity of backgrounds when the web kind of took off. And so you had people coming from human factors backgrounds, from cognitive psychology backgrounds, from computer science backgrounds, from graphic design backgrounds, library and information science backgrounds. And, you know, in truth, all those factors really add up to creating an appropriate user interface for a software product, whether it's on the web or on the desktop or on your mobile device. You know, you sort of have to think about how does the information structure, how do people make their way through it? How are we presenting that information visually? How are we presenting that information textually, too? So things like copywriting kind of play into it. So it's really an opportunity for a lot of people from different fields to come in with an area of vertical expertise, and someone might be an incredible copywriter. So they add a lot of clarity to an interface. And then if they pick up more horizontal skills around sort of interaction design or maybe information architecture, then they become a more well-rounded, quote-unquote, full-on product designer. And people can do that from the development side, too, right? There's no reason someone that's been building things and has had to deal with interaction issues like feedback, state management, you know, flows and processes couldn't do that.", "start": 67.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 163.50256410256412, "text": "What would be the difference between UI and UX? That's something that often gets asked.", "start": 161, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 198.73000000000002, "text": "Yeah, you know, I don't like to get into the semantics, but in general, user experience tries to be very, very broad and cover everything that somebody can encounter with a product. Some people go very, very broad with it and cover not just the experience of the product, but the experience of the retail store. So if you think of the quintessential example of Apple, they've got retail stores, they've got hardware, they've got software, they've got customer support, they've got a web presence, they have marketing, all that together, in many people's eyes, informs the user experience, which is pretty big, right? It's a lot of stuff.", "start": 165.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 199.88, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 199.68, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 217.14976, "text": "And that's why I tend to say, hey, interface design is a little bit more concrete, it deals with software, it sort of deals with interaction design, visual design, content, and I think you can wrap your head around that space a little bit more than you can around user experience sometimes.", "start": 200.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 253.97000000000003, "text": "It seems like sort of the naive understanding of the field is that you have the coders who build a product and then you have a web designer. But it seems like that's not really the case anymore, at least for the more sophisticated products. You have designers who might actually draw pictures of how things might look, but the people who try and come up with a flow of tasks, or I guess what you might call the workflow, and what elements are seen on the screen at any given time, and maybe even where they're placed, and how big they are, that's what the UI designer does that, if it's sort of at a bigger firm?", "start": 218.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 346.565888, "text": "Yeah, it's such a blur. At bigger firms, there tends to be kind of, I guess, on the actual UI design side, there tends to be a couple roles. So many companies specialize around visual design and creative design, so they've got somebody who's sort of responsible for the look and feel, the brand representation, sort of the overall visceral aspects of the design, then they're likely to have an interaction designer or a UI designer, depending on the title, and that person is responsible for what are the elements on each piece of the flow, how does the flow go, how are they organized. Sometimes there's even deeper specialization in that area where you have someone called an information architect whose job is to manage just very large sets of data. That's where that usually is most useful. When you're dealing with very large catalogs, you need to have ways to navigate through them, and you have to have ways to make relationships with it, assign metadata to it, label it appropriately. In the early days of the web, this process of sort of information organization and architecture is very important, because most sites were essentially navigation fests, right? You just had a bunch of pages, and the primary user interaction was move between them. So you had to know where you are, where you can go, what other options are there, so information architecture is a lot more important. But in today's web, you know, people navigate so organically through things like search and links and feeds that a lot of times that structure is just kind of overkill, and it's the interactions that matter a bit more. So I think you're seeing more of a focus on the UI and interaction design than the information architecture, but some companies still specialize.", "start": 254.92000000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 352.5693391304348, "text": "So take a site like Craigslist, right? Is that essentially pure information architecture without any design?", "start": 349.28, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 377.8550511627907, "text": "You know, everything is designed whether that design is intentional or not, right? There is no, you know, the alternative to, there is no no design, it's either good design or bad design. And some people praise Craigslist's design, that's a double plural there, because, you know, it is that simple, doesn't really have any thrills, it's just here's all the stuff. Other people find it overwhelming, and it's just, you know, link fest, they don't know", "start": 356.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 381.6433333333333, "text": "where to go.", "start": 381.56, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 387.7911111111111, "text": "And, you know, especially kind of the garishness of some of the postings in there, really turn them off.", "start": 382.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 397.4188235294118, "text": "I suppose one question I have for you is, how important do you think the design is to the product making money, which is kind of, I guess, joined to this current discussion about Craigslist?", "start": 388.68, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 398.4415561643836, "text": "Well, not so much making money, just being successful is probably better.", "start": 398.36, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 418.946653164557, "text": "Yeah, well, you know, nobody sees the bits underneath the surface, except for web developers who sometimes go to a website and look at view source and check out the code. But to everybody else, the design, and by that, I mean, the full interface, visual and interaction and information, that is the product, right? So how successful is the product to the product is pretty much very successful.", "start": 400.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 422.72602500000005, "text": "So it's basically 100%, you know, it's the most important thing.", "start": 422.6, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 445.75, "text": "Yeah, because, I mean, again, nobody's really experiencing it through, you know, your JavaScript code, right? They're not going through things function by function, or actually looking at your markup tags when they're using a product. They're using the UI components you have, they're looking at the screen with their eyes, or even if they're in a screen reader, they're using all of the actual content you have in there to read and understand what they can do. So the design of the product is the product.", "start": 425.44000000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 456.38955471698114, "text": "It's interesting, because a lot of the people who listen to our show are bootstrappers and, you know, bootstrapping developers, and usually don't have the money to kind of afford or engage a designer. So they end up having to do this, do that themselves.", "start": 447.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 516.9891605633803, "text": "Yeah, well, it depends, you know, there's many of the software that we use was actually created by developers that have just either a sense of aesthetic, or understand where they have gaps, and fill them through the opinions and testing of others, right? I worked with Larry Tesler during my time at Yahoo, he was one of the early engineers on the Mac and kind of the father of cut and paste, right? And he was an engineer by training, but he did design work. Like he would, I can't remember, I think he was, I'm spacing on his last name, but he was working with someone else, Bill Atkinson, on this feature on the Mac. And during the day, Bill would come in, or during the night, Bill would come in and write code. And then Larry would come in in the morning, he'd test that code with users and try and get feedback. And he was doing it in a very sort of usability engineering kind of way. But it was design work, right? And you know, that file edit, or copy and paste is so ubiquitous, and it's considered sort of a design of operating systems, but it was created by engineers.", "start": 458.24, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 570.9270117647059, "text": "It seems to me that what you describe as user experience, and I guess even interface design, is almost less about artistic design as it is in just trying to understand how humans are going to address the product. So it's almost like if you're talking to a salesperson, someone who's an expert in sales, they'll say, okay, look, this is how we want to set up the meeting, this is the things we need to say early on, this is how we manage the relationship. And they sort of develop this understanding of how an interaction process works and how to make sure that it's going to work out okay. And you know, whereas the artistic aspect of like, okay, well, what colors are we going to make things and what fonts are we going to choose, typography and things, is sort of like the next step. Like, the first step is just trying to figure out the sort of stages of the experience. I mean, how do you think about it?", "start": 522.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 690.165837037037, "text": "Yeah, like I was saying at the beginning, there's so many layers in all this, right? And they all kind of add up, which is why even though it's so easy to go make software on the web, not everything really does very well, right? And there's lots of issues around that. But people's impressions are formed so much by what they see and how they go through that flow. And that informs, you know, how they use the product, what they get it to do. And even little considerations can make a huge deal. So just to talk about the visual design side of the coin, the first book I wrote, which was, yeah, I guess eight years ago or something like that, was called Sightseeing. And it was really about, at the time, there was this tension kind of that you're alluding to between design and, I guess, usability. So the usability experts were out there saying it must be functional above all else. If people can't understand it, they can't use it, it's pointless. And there was a design crowd out there that was saying, well, it also has to be, you know, aesthetically pleasing and beautiful and, you know, visuals matter too. And so kind of the central thesis of that book that I wrote is that it's the two of the things together. And the visual design actually supports the usability. Because when you think about how you do visual design, there's essentially two intertwined parts. One is, you know, the color selection, the font selection, the image selection, the sort of creating an appropriate personality or brand or look and feel through the visuals. But the other part is the visual organization. If you give something a lot of visual weight, that's the thing people are going to notice. If you make things look very similar visually, people are going to group that and associate them together. If you make things look very distinct, people will think they're separate functions or not consider them as part of the same process. And those kinds of visual design decisions play a huge role in usability, in how people can or can't use software. Which is why, you know, again, the thesis there was these two things are intertwined and you can't really separate them.", "start": 572.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 692.5203282051282, "text": "And so is Apple the perfect real world example of how that all hangs together?", "start": 692.22, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 733.0616216216216, "text": "Well, interesting. I just was reading an interview last night in bed on my iPad, ironically, with the former CEO of Apple, John Sculley, talking about how he sort of understood the Steve Jobs method. Right. And one of the points that he made in there was he was talking very recently to someone who was a developer. And that developer had back to back meetings with Apple and Microsoft in the same day about whatever service they were doing. And when he went to Apple, the people in the room that everybody in the meeting deferred to was the designers. When he went to the Microsoft meeting, there was no designers in the room.", "start": 697.0600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 771.1376, "text": "In fact, I just read something this morning was talking about how Paul Graham's essay on the topic that the reason that Yahoo had so many problems and was passed up by Google was that it lost its hacker-centric culture and sort of the hackers were replaced by suits. But the argument that this guy made against that was that, well, Apple is not a hacker-centric culture. It's a designer-centric culture that the designers have the final say and they're the ones that are in the room for the big decisions are made. So in a sense, Apple is winning by design, not by winning by code.", "start": 735.9399999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 809.4666666666667, "text": "Yeah. And, you know, I think that aesthetic carries through down across the whole company, right? When they say the designers have the final say, it's the designers have the final say through proxy of Steve Jobs because he gives such a damn about design, right? And they sort of channel his attention to details and focus on design. That's how decisions get made. And places like Google, you know, the founders or the co-founders are engineers. And so they sort of channel the value of engineering and technical solutions and things like that. And that kind of is what carries the weight over there. Right.", "start": 774.86, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 818.9128000000001, "text": "And, you know, all these founders. And it's interesting. It's a fractal because, you know, the person at the top will hire people who thinks the way that they do and they will hire people who they think who thinks the way they do. So essentially that will propagate throughout the company.", "start": 810.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 822.1757142857143, "text": "Yeah. That's how you make culture.", "start": 821.14, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 823.3066666666666, "text": "Right.", "start": 823.14, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 837.8154388059702, "text": "That's why a lot of, you know, the quote unquote suits say culture is really the most important thing in a company is the thing that aligns everybody along some similar vision. Otherwise, everybody's running around like a chicken with their head cut off in different directions. So they don't have this sort of shared sense of what they're doing.", "start": 824.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 856.9172000000001, "text": "So what I'd be curious about is how you got into this field. I mean, it seems that people who become web designers often start out as graphic designers. They study design in school and they sort of migrate to the web or at least they did in the past when the web was younger. But what was your path to getting in this field?", "start": 842.34, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 886.7976192771085, "text": "Yeah, I was actually pretty similar. So I was I actually started out in engineering when I was in undergrad and I did close to a year of engineering that I decided that staying up late coding and this time it was, you know, what was it? C sharp was not for me. And so I switched over to the art and design program. And when I made that switch, I took a internship at NCSA, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, which at the time was where Mark Andreessen was building NCSA Mosaic.", "start": 858.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 898.8234782608697, "text": "Well, wait, hold on one second. So that first of all, that's really cool that you can get an internship like that. Where were you at? University of Illinois?", "start": 892.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 899.9800000000001, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 899.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 919.4699999999999, "text": "University of Illinois. Champaign-Urbana. Because that's where that that's where the Champaign-Urbana because that's where the supercomputing center is located. Yeah. Exactly. So C sharp didn't come out until what, like 2000, around 2000 or so, 2001, 2002, but the Netscape and that whole thing was going on, or at least the first version of the Mosaic browser was what, like 93, 94? So maybe it was C++.", "start": 900.7800000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 921.62, "text": "I may have my labeling wrong. Yeah.", "start": 920.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 922.4522580645161, "text": "It was C, C++ and then C sharp.", "start": 922.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 926.62, "text": "Right. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah.", "start": 923.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 931.67, "text": "C sharp came in the 2000s. Right. So yeah. C++ would have been. C++.", "start": 927.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 933.62, "text": "That was what I was doing. Okay.", "start": 932.42, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 934.531111111111, "text": "Pre-Java.", "start": 934.42, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 942.0511111111111, "text": "Pre-Java. After this, they started actually teaching Java in the CS departments at University of Illinois.", "start": 935.7400000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 951.5000000000001, "text": "Yeah. Because Java was sort of influenced, you know, well, it was influenced probably by a lot of things, but obviously it was influenced by C++ and then C sharp was influenced by Java.", "start": 942.94, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 958.3666666666668, "text": "But not to get off topic. Just a quick question. Did you know that something big was happening when you were there, like that Marc Andreessen was doing that?", "start": 952.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 996.86, "text": "Oh, well, yeah. The web was pretty amazing. You know, when I came on board, the browser was done. I mean, I wasn't part of the team that actually did Mosaic. My mentor at, when I later went on to do grad school, Colleen Bushel, she was actually the designer on, you know, designer in quotes here. She was the person from the design background that got involved in that project. She's the person responsible for the little spinning navigator that let you know that something was going on. Yeah. I don't know if you guys use Mosaic, but it had this S with a little globe in the middle and that would sort of spin in the upper right hand corner to let you know page was loading. Yeah.", "start": 959.3000000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 997.8351859649123, "text": "So that pretty much defined loading concepts in that way.", "start": 997.66, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1044.6556, "text": "Still there. Right. You look at any browser, they still have it. IE had that with the spinning IE thing, Netscape did it with the spinning like little lighthouse or whatever. Yeah. So she did that. You know, she worked on a lot of the original Chrome stuff there too, with just the whole paradigm of what's home forward and back. But this is actually a really great re-segue or pullback to the first question you guys asked, right? Because Andrew was a developer, Colleen was a designer and he was doing a lot of the decisions that ultimately impacted design coming from a development background, right? I don't know the full story of how back forward and home and all those things kind of came into fruition. But, you know, obviously everything that she did was a collaboration between him and her and the rest of the team over there.", "start": 1000.82, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1053.2351999999998, "text": "It's funny how you just take that stuff for granted. You kind of feel like it's always been there, but someone had to create those tools when that product was first invented.", "start": 1046.58, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1100.9999999999998, "text": "Yeah. And I love those stories. I heard another story about how kind of the image tag came to fruition. And Jeffrey Veen was talking about this recently. So he was talking about an email exchange. There was like a mailing list early in the day that Tim Bergers-Lee and Mark Andreessen were on. And Mark Andreessen fired off a proposal and said, oh, here's how I'm thinking of doing the image. Other people chimed in with different ideas. And then I guess a week later, he said, OK, I implemented it like this, IMG. And you know, other people chimed in, but he's the one that shipped the code. So it went out there and Veen calls it a rough consensus running code. And it's amazing how many times that that's the thing that actually makes a decision, right? When somebody just goes and does the thing. Oh, OK. It's done. All right.", "start": 1055.1799999999998, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1103.976923076923, "text": "It kind of works. Let's go with that, right? That's right.", "start": 1101.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1111.2501714285715, "text": "That often happens in large companies as well. I've seen that in corporate culture. Basically when you get a doer, he just does it. And then all of a sudden, the corporate company will basically follow the lead of the doer.", "start": 1105.46, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1115.407834920635, "text": "Well, the major problem is most corporations don't do anything.", "start": 1115.22, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1118.7369230769232, "text": "Right, right.", "start": 1118.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1120.1156962025318, "text": "There's a lot of undoers or non-doers, and that's what slows them down so much.", "start": 1119.66, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1147.1188235294117, "text": "So when you switched over to the design program, I mean, did you have a good sense of design coming in? Did you have someone who was sort of good at drawing or painting as a kid? So you that was like a dual sort of talent that you had that you knew going into college. So when the engineering wasn't working out as well as you liked, you thought, oh, yeah, I'll just go design. Or did you just completely say, hey, I have no idea if I have any talent, but I'm going to try it anyway.", "start": 1125.66, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1187.1828129032258, "text": "Yeah, I was always both sides. Right. When I was working with computers, I was using them to do art. Or when I was, you know, back when I was programming basic, you know, who knows when that was. But I would use it to make like ASCII art of spaceships launching, using like the little print F commands. So I always had this sort of duality. I would definitely not say I'm a very strong artist. There's much better illustrators and painters and graphic designers out there than me. I think where I have sort of a good skill set is really the combination of what can the technology do and how can the design support that. And that's sort of what I've carried with me as I've moved on.", "start": 1148.06, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1220.5630095238096, "text": "Right. And so when you were working, when you moved over to the design field, I mean, how much of that was just sort of a real abstract sense of design versus I mean, I guess back in when was this was ninety, ninety four, five, six, ninety five, ninety five, ninety six. So that was probably before anyone's really thinking about web design because it was barely even graphical at that point. So you learned sort of from just think about things in terms of just standard design of like graphic design, I guess, of any kind.", "start": 1190.8200000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1258.036111627907, "text": "Yeah. That's what the training was. You know, we had other tools around kind of learning the digital desktop publishing tool. So back then we were working on things like Cork Express two or three or whatever it was. And we did a lot of basic design stuff with the stuff that really caught my attention was a lot of the information design work. So again, just going back to Colleen Bushel, because she really had a strong influence on me back in my grad and undergrad days. She worked with Edward Tufte, who's written a lot of the quintessential books on information design. Yeah. In fact, the one that has kind of the storm cloud animation on the cover, I think it's", "start": 1223.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1264.92, "text": "the visual visual display of quantitative information. Yeah.", "start": 1261.08, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1305.6336653061226, "text": "That's it. So that was the project that she worked with Tufte on. And, you know, so I think she took a lot from that experience that she passed on down to me and her students just about the information display principles that design enables. And that was what I gravitated to a lot more than, you know, just sort of, I guess, the art and graphic design aspect of things. I was a lot more interested in the information design and in how you can do layering and separation and move people through information and all that. And couple that with, you know, all of a sudden there's a digital format for doing that, a.k.a. the web. And that was really, really exciting at the time.", "start": 1265.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1315.8667471698116, "text": "When a coder kind of makes a first draft of something and they don't know anything about design and they don't know how to lay things out or whatever, what would you what is the kind of most common rookie mistakes that you've seen?", "start": 1307.88, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1341.534981818182, "text": "I think the most common mistakes are there's really no hierarchy and separation. You know, everything is sort of equal and everything's fighting for everybody's attention. The really simple rule that I use that I think people that helps people understand this is everybody's screaming, nobody gets hurt. Right. So if you put out a layout and every single button looks exactly the same and there's 20 buttons on it, what do you do?", "start": 1319.3600000000001, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1344.4302249999998, "text": "It's difficult for the user to understand which button to click.", "start": 1344.36, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1363.945263157895, "text": "Yeah, there's just no prioritization at all. Right. So we come to each one of our interactions of software is just a set amount of cognitive load that we have to use on that task. And if you burn it trying to figure out what the heck's going on, then that becomes a pretty frustrating experience pretty quickly.", "start": 1346.48, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1367.3831407407408, "text": "So how do you how do you fix that? What what do you do right to stop that from happening?", "start": 1365.8400000000001, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1423.2705333333333, "text": "So I think the first thing you can start to think about is, you know, what is the appropriate grouping of the items on this page and how can I use visual information to indicate that so people can use or their natural gestalt understanding of the world to form associations to get understanding. That's kind of one thing is grouping. And the other thing becomes sort of a prioritization. And when you realize what's most important, secondarily important or not really important at this point, the third bucket of stuff just get rid of. But once you realize sort of what's most important and secondarily important, then you can apply more or less visual weight and to the more important things. And visual weight is really just about creating contrast. So adding if one thing is red, circular and big and another thing is small, square and gray, guess which one has stronger visual weight because of the contrast, because of the contrast between those things. So you can start to balance how much weight you give things and assign and associate that with the prioritization of what's on the screen.", "start": 1369.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1431.8773777777776, "text": "And while all of a sudden you're thinking about design, is there a way to use something that isn't that has low contrast for use?", "start": 1425.04, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1453.153512328767, "text": "Yeah, well, you know, the human eye basically picks out differences between things, right? That's sort of how our brain is wired. So if you have something that's really low contrast and you just have a little bit of contrast that'll pop up. So if a composition is totally gray, everything is the same shade of gray and then something's a little darker shade of gray that'll pop out because of that difference.", "start": 1435.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1472.1893837837838, "text": "So is that like, for example, on the Apple OS in the title bar, you know, for a typical app where they have the name of the document that you currently have open. So it's sort of, it lets you know that the name of the document, but it doesn't completely overtake your eye because it's just a little off the gray of the main bar.", "start": 1457.8799999999999, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1499.7684266666668, "text": "Yeah, that's actually a pretty common technique. So what you want to, what you can do to set context in applications, this is why a lot of Chrome is gray, is because you want that stuff to recede in the background and let the actual things you're interacting with come forward, right? When you're using say like a Photoshop or what have you, you don't want all of the icons and the tools for that application screaming at you because you want to focus on the photo you're editing or on the page you're designing.", "start": 1476.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1503.937890909091, "text": "So your software shouldn't really get in the way of your framework of what you're doing.", "start": 1503.64, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1544.243161445783, "text": "Yeah, I'm a firm believer that the design shouldn't be in the way of tools and services and things like that. You know, a great analogy that my friend Jared Spool uses frequently is air conditioning. You know, when's the last time you were in a meeting and somebody said, Hey, I just, I just want to point out whoever set the air conditioning. It's just great. You know, not too hot, not too cold. You just did a fantastic job. Nobody says that, right? When it's working, it's totally invisible to you. When people talk about the air conditioning is when it's too hot or it's too cold. When it's working, it's totally invisible. Same with design. When it's not working, you shouldn't, you know, you shouldn't even know it's there.", "start": 1508.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1559.9833333333331, "text": "So like Facebook is a good example of that in a lot of people go, Oh, but Facebook's so bland. But actually the reason why it's bland is so that the content comes out. So the people's pictures and what people say comes out and you kind of ignore the rest of Facebook.", "start": 1547.76, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1594.3590755555554, "text": "Yeah. They spend a lot of time tuning the presentation of things, especially the feed. I think over time as the site has grown, there's definitely areas where they could introduce some hierarchy and contrast to things because there's situations where they're just not taking advantage of that very well, everything's blue and gray and that's it, right? That's all they have to work with. So I think there's an opportunity for them to tune that a bit more, but the rigor and the detail of things like the way the comments are represented in the feed and the way they call out the action and the feed and all that, I guarantee there's a whole bunch of testing and thinking and reiteration underneath that.", "start": 1560.8999999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1597.5207142857141, "text": "Is space important in design and what role does it play?", "start": 1597.3999999999999, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1644.2433333333333, "text": "Well, again, it boils down to the contrast, right? By putting space around something, you call attention to it. Sort of one of the principles underlying how we interpret visual information is that we'll use the empty spaces around things to form groupings and associations. So by introducing space in the right place, you can put focus on particular areas or you can pace people through things or you can create distinctions between elements. A lot of people think, oh, white space, that's for aesthetic effect, but it's actually very important for parsing and for moving people through information in a way that's quick and scannable. And when you just go in and fill in all your white space with content, because you can, you break the ability of people many times to make their way through that information effectively.", "start": 1600.2, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1645.329411764706, "text": "Justin, can I ask a few questions?", "start": 1645.16, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1647.8100000000002, "text": "Yes.", "start": 1647.5600000000002, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1731.5116, "text": "Sorry, I've been hooking the line a little bit. Let me just say something, okay? So before this podcast started, Luke, Justin called me up and said, listen, I only slept for two hours last night and I had some fillings replaced, so I have a headache, so you're going to have to carry the show. I'm really in a bad mood. And I was like, he's all fired up, he won't even let me talk. He won't even let me ask you a question. So you got him excited. He's like, you know, so okay, so that's good. So, all right. My question is this. I had an idea at one point to write like a blog post that we sort of tutorial-like design or user design 101 for hackers. Because it seems like there's just like a basic idea of what you want to do. You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right? You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right? You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right? And it would seem like something like that would be really useful just to get non-designers who are building software up over a basic bar so they can express themselves in the code or at least their first version of the design before they really even involve a designer. And I was actually going to do this for my, sort of like a, I want this for myself, so I'll use it as a learning experience by writing it. This may go on these things that I never end up doing. So if you were going to do something like that, what would be your sort of like, you know, what would be the basic elements that you would think a non-designer would need to understand to be a little better at doing that sort of thing?", "start": 1648.5600000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1826.3629333333333, "text": "Yeah. So we talked about some of those just basic understanding of the visual organization things, which is hierarchy, prioritization, visual weight, all that. And it's not really that rough to do. I actually wrote an article many years ago on just some of the basic principles underlying visual organization. So I might be able to save you some typing, but that's kind of step one, right? And then, you know, people, I think really over focus on the color selection and the font selection and all those sorts of things that I'm not denying that that's important, but, you know, ultimately is your site blue or purple, is that really going to make or break it? Probably not. Right. I was working at eBay a number of years ago and then we were building a new product called eBay Express and the design team there made this thing orange, right? And they had all these supporting arguments about why it was orange. And we went in and presented to the SVP who's funding the project and he, you know, he looked it over, we talked about things and he said, you know, everything's looking pretty good, but, you know, hey, can you come back to me with just a couple of other options on the color scheme? Let me see what else you guys can come up with. So the team went back and instead of just exploring a couple of their color palettes, they created this whole presentation about why it's orange, you know, orange is associated with value and it's a unique color that we can own on the web and this, you know, it's this really important defining thing for the next generation of eBay. And they went back and made some of those arguments and, you know, the SVP said at the end of it, he's like, look, you guys, I just don't fricking like orange, just go", "start": 1734.98, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1830.1999999999998, "text": "change it.", "start": 1830.1, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1856.616842105263, "text": "And personally, I think that was a lot of wasted effort and time on just that color set, right? Because there's so many other more important things like what's the product doing for people? How are they getting through it? How's it creating value for the company? How are you going to unramp people into the new product? How can design move them through important flows and all this stuff? There's all this much meatier, more important stuff that actually brings the product to life than whether it's orange or blue.", "start": 1831.1, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1863.4680333333333, "text": "Does it matter? I know I've asked this before, and sorry, Jason, I'm interrupting. But once again, does it matter if it looks good?", "start": 1859.3799999999999, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1921.08224, "text": "Yeah, well, I think there are examples of products that don't look good that are successful. And I think there are examples of products that look very, very good that are successful. People associate themselves with things that they want to kind of represent their personality. And the vast majority of people want to believe they look good, right? And so they want to associate themselves with things that look good. Now, many people have different kind of aesthetics of what is good and what's not. And when you're young, you know, think MySpace, right? The way you think of what looks good is a lot more, I guess, chaotic, if you will. And over time, you sort of hone in on what you actually associate with looking good. But, you know, fundamentally, I think we, as human beings, are sort of attracted to things of beauty. So there's no harm in trying to align with that natural attraction that's in human beings.", "start": 1866.1399999999999, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1926.0005142857142, "text": "Sorry, Jason, I interrupted.", "start": 1925.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 1928.0225, "text": "No, that's fine.", "start": 1927.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1951.9265818181818, "text": "It's fine. One of the elements that I was thinking if, you know, if I, like I said, this article, that theoretical article that I may and probably will never write, is the idea of spacing. And I started reading up on something that's called a grid system, which I had never heard of before, but I keep seeing popping up more recently. Could you maybe describe, I mean, what exactly is a grid system, and how does that play into sort of organizing a web page or web design?", "start": 1928.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 1954.250909090909, "text": "Yeah, yeah.", "start": 1954.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 1956.2369230769232, "text": "So the grid system... Or I guess even just a user interface design at all.", "start": 1955.16, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2005.3902518518519, "text": "Sure. So the grid system basically gives you a structure around which to do the visual organization stuff that I was talking about. Right. So one of the... And this all boils down to Gestalt again, and how we perceive things visually. Principles like alignment, proximity, similarity, continuance, spacing, all that stuff flows in. And what you do with the grid system is you basically have an underlying structure that you can lay things against and play into some of those principles, right? So you can have things in close proximity there, you can have continuance, because the grid system lets you go from something that's a 50 by 50 to 100 by 100 to a 200 by 200, and that helps you play with prioritization. At the very least, if you're super basic, don't know anything about any of this stuff, a grid system will at least allow you to align things.", "start": 1958.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2007.8761290322582, "text": "Is it an invisible grid system?", "start": 2007.72, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2016.2507701492539, "text": "Yeah, you usually don't see it. Sometimes one or two of the lines you make transparent through background colors or through lines or things like that, but the bulk of it is behind the scenes.", "start": 2009.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2027.2961, "text": "So think of it like guides, like you might see guides in Microsoft Word or something like that. It's a kind of guides grid system that's invisible when it's on the finished product, but while you're designing, you've got it to line your little elements up.", "start": 2019.0800000000002, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2046.9911111111112, "text": "Right. And one of the things that makes stuff really hard to parse visually is no alignment, right? Or everything is just sort of whacked around. This thing's center aligned, the thing below it's left aligned, and you've got like five other columns. It's just very hard to parse that and scan it in the way that we make sense of information visually.", "start": 2029.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2053.780824615385, "text": "Is balance important? For example, if you put a big square box on the top right of the page, should you then essentially have a big square box on the bottom left of the page?", "start": 2047.88, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2096.0625488372093, "text": "Well, not if that big square box on the right thing is the number one thing to do on that page and it represents your like big call to action, it makes you tons of money, right? I wouldn't balance it. I would try and put the focus on that one, that one prioritized element. You can see this on like, you know, e-commerce product pages, right? The call to action buy button is this huge high contrast thing generally situated in the kind of middle-ish slash center of the page. And that's, you know, to draw your eye there and have that be the thing you look at. And ideally it's paired next to the product image because images usually attract our attention. We spend time looking at them. And if you can make that association, here's the image, here's the buy button. That's where the eye goes quite frequently.", "start": 2056.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2100.26757752809, "text": "Interesting. Interesting. So that's like an interesting trick that I'd never heard of, put an action near an image.", "start": 2097.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2120.295185964912, "text": "It depends on the type of image. It's got to be an information rich image. If it's an image that's just like stock photography or seems irrelevant to the content, the task people will just tune it out and ignore it. And having a call to action associated next to that kind of image can actually make that call to action blend into that image and get ignored too.", "start": 2104.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2123.4466666666663, "text": "Right.", "start": 2123.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2152.035356097561, "text": "There's all sorts of things that we do when we parse information. Another one that many people get into that's a common mistake is try and make calls to action very, very different, like too different. And what happens is people generally perceive that as an ad because it doesn't look like anything like the rest of the UI. This is where the subtlety of a designer actually comes into play really strongly. And it's sometimes hard for people who don't have just sort of a background on visual understanding is how much contrast do you lay in there?", "start": 2124.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2163.634509090909, "text": "But if you think of Amazon.com, basically they have their image on the far left hand side of the page and their call to action on the far right hand side of the page. So I guess it's not a steadfast rule, right?", "start": 2155.12, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2196.9361066666665, "text": "You know, as I said at the beginning, the quintessential design answer to everything is it depends because it's all about the context of what's around it, right? And it's all about the context of what else you have on the page. If one site has a really, really strong brand color, like a big red brand color, and that's represented in their banner or their logo or whatever, then they can't necessarily use the same amount of contrast or the same kind of contrast than a site that has a really muted and sort of faded palette for their company brand and logo. And they're playing with a different overall list of things.", "start": 2167.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2238.375555555556, "text": "You know, so the idea of like giving some tips or some structure to how to think about this stuff is, it seems like it's a little difficult because the way you describe it is that design is an art. And I don't mean art, just mean like as in artistic, I mean an art as in, it's not scientific. It's not like a bunch of series of rules. It really is contextual and it seems like, so what I'm wondering is, is visual design something that few people are ever really going to be good at, no matter how many classes they take. It's like, you know, like painting, like an art, right? I mean, most people just are not ever going to be good artists, no matter how many art classes they take.", "start": 2200.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2257.904, "text": "But like, I mean, just like coding, right? And not everybody's going to be a great developer no matter how much they study computer science or how much code they write. And I think all of these things are both an art and a science and I would take development on the same plane. Right? I mean, you can have all of the scientific rigor around how you're writing your algorithms, how you're optimizing your markup, but every once in a while you need a creative solution,", "start": 2239.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2261.5266666666666, "text": "right?", "start": 2261.36, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2266.0016666666666, "text": "And you need to have sort of your personal take on how this thing's going to be architected in order for it to work.", "start": 2262.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2284.173289411765, "text": "Well, I guess one thing you notice about really great coders is their taste, you know, how they organize their code, how they attack the problem, how they think about it. And I imagine that's the same thing with design. You know, they can know all the, you can know all the rules, but it's really how your brain puts it all together. And it just shows, you know, sort of really good taste versus sort of mediocre taste.", "start": 2266.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2303.7633333333333, "text": "You learn all the rules so you can break them. Right? You learn the essence of art and music and all that. People that play jazz spend a ton of time learning scales so that when they start playing, they can forget about the scales and, you know, kind of do what fits with the music at the time.", "start": 2288.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2309.4555428571425, "text": "But one thing I've noticed about designers and working with professional designers is they all seem to have a style and I can't quite work out if that's a good thing or a", "start": 2304.68, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2313.25456, "text": "bad thing.", "start": 2313.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2364.0314285714285, "text": "I think it's a good thing. I think, um, we're attracted to things with personality and, you know, take a look at anything that you sort of consider a masterpiece in the world, right? Whether it's an architecture or art or writing or literally, they all have a point of view. They all have a perspective that they bring to the world. And that perspective is what makes them unique. Whereas if you think about all the stuff that's really bland and boring in the world, like say corporate websites, in most cases, it's a brochure aware website. There is no personality. There is no point of view. It's 50 people all chiming in with their opinion and you can, you can see it, right? It kind of comes through. So having that perspective and that point of view and a design that many times can come from a designer, it doesn't have to, um, it can come from all sorts of different sources, but having a point of view and a perspective and a personality is really, really powerful and important.", "start": 2314.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2369.7483223880595, "text": "So is that a good rule of thumb when hiring a designer to, to look through their work and make sure that you like their general concept, their viewpoint?", "start": 2364.96, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2390.2625000000003, "text": "I, um, I think there's two things you should look for when you hire a designer. One is, can they get the big picture behind what you're doing? Do they understand the purpose of what you're doing? Why you're doing it for who, what are the factors that are involved in making it successful, right? The big picture.", "start": 2374.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2391.2344827586207, "text": "Do they grok the big picture?", "start": 2391.2000000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2433.8799999999997, "text": "And then secondarily, do they have a strong attention to detail, meaning do they, are they really thinking about all the different choices they're making, why they're making them, the considerations they go through, what the impact of those choices is, all the little detailed nuance stuff. Because if you know the big picture and you know a little details and everything in the middle sort of works itself out, uh, too many designers, I think, or people who call themselves designers are focused on the middle part and don't have the big picture and don't spend the time and the rigor that they need on the details. And as a result, they're in the middle and that's sort of the middle Ocraty zone. Um, that's how I would look and try and hire designers. Yeah.", "start": 2392.2000000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2447.2600835820895, "text": "I have always, I've noticed that detail is kind of very important to, to make you think that something has really high quality. It has, it kind of has a little fine details that you wouldn't necessarily notice unless you went looking for them. But overall, all the fine details add up to just very high quality.", "start": 2434.68, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2452.2414727272726, "text": "Yeah. There's a great Charles Eames quote, which is basically, uh, the details are the design,", "start": 2450.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2457.6866666666665, "text": "right?", "start": 2457.52, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2471.923659770115, "text": "He's, he's, I think he's, he, he said something like the details don't make the design. The details are the design. That's how, that's all the choices you make is what leads to the final product. And the more meticulous and focused you are in every single one of the details, the more likely you're going to have something that's coherent and structured and aligns to that", "start": 2458.92, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2500.54, "text": "big picture. What are some of the designs on the web that you think are the most cutting edge? You know, because it seems like we go through these phases where, um, the, the, what would the style shifts, you know, and I remember when like, um, you know, the 37 signals base camp thing came in and everyone was sort of copying them for a while. And I'm wondering if you're sensing, you know, a direction or a style that's starting to take hold now.", "start": 2475.08, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2553.8579591836738, "text": "Yeah. I think what we're doing is we're maturing the market in general, right? So early on in the web, a lot of people just came on board and did all sorts of things, but now you've got a much bigger audience, right? We're projected to hit 2 billion worldwide by the end of 2010. And as you mature the market and as you get to, um, situations where it's not just about the functionality anymore, it's about the overall experience. You're going to see products that are focused on more or on managing simplicity for you, making things easier to grok, just the sheer competition and the number of things there drives the market to reduction. So hopefully there's going to be a bit more reductionism and you know, I don't mean that like visually, I just mean that in the amount of overhead you need to go and start using a site or a product as things mature and people understand what the technology does and how it does it. Then it's really focused on that experience more.", "start": 2501.7999999999997, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2564.1110400000002, "text": "Are there any, any sites out there now? And I mean more in the terms of applications as opposed to just pure informational sites that you think are really cutting edge right now or setting a new, uh, sort of a new style", "start": 2556.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2568.477037037037, "text": "that you think are awesome?", "start": 2568.44, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2569.7671142857143, "text": "Well, it depends on what you define cutting edge, right?", "start": 2569.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2573.7557142857145, "text": "What do you think's awesome?", "start": 2573.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2575.0630588235294, "text": "What do I think is I, so I'll be frank with you guys, I, I really hate that question.", "start": 2574.7200000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2580.689125925926, "text": "That was just his question.", "start": 2580.12, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2639.3745163636368, "text": "Everybody asks that question and you know, if you, if, if you, I mean there's lots of things that are really awesome for lots of different reasons, right? And just simply saying, oh, I like that in many cases is really just selling it short what they're doing and why they're doing, uh, why that aspect of things that they're doing is great. Like I'll give you guys just a couple of really small nuanced examples of things I like. So there's a, I've lately been doing a lot of to do tracking, there's this little site called to do we do list or we do list, um, and it's super bland, doesn't do a lot of things, but it's all around creating to dues and they've used a ton of inline actions and really small interactions that you can add things and stick things in really light and quick. And I really like that experience for just the immediacy and ability for me to stay in a single page and get a lot of stuff done very quickly and easily. So I like it for its interaction design of to do lists.", "start": 2584.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2642.16, "text": "Okay.", "start": 2641.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2649.3151080459775, "text": "And that's, that's one example, right? You know, all, a lot of other things around that product, maybe they're not the greatest, maybe, um, you know, they have other issues, but that specific aspect of it is actually", "start": 2642.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2683.696142222222, "text": "pretty useful for me. I was wondering if we could ask you about, um, I guess I'd like to ask you about a couple of your presentations that you've given recently. Um, one is you called signup forms must die. Um, and yeah, I'd like to maybe just give us a quick version of that because I think that's a really interesting problem because as web applications, you ultimately need to get a certain amount of information to, to be able to move forward. But yet you've got too much in there. People seem to get frustrated and not want to go, not even want to use your product. So I'll be curious what your take in that is.", "start": 2653.2400000000002, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2754.8120727272726, "text": "Yeah. So my central thesis around signup forms must die is, you know, somebody tells you about a website or you get a link, you go and check it out. And what's the first thing you have to do is go fill in a web form, right? Before you can actually use it, before you can actually see what it's doing for you. Maybe you can take like a tour or any of that kind of stuff. But you know, step one is, okay, give us your name, give us your email address, agree to our terms of service, agree to our privacy policy, you know, solve this CAPTCHA riddle. And I think that's just a really shitty first time experience for a new product. Instead, I think it's much better to try and give people a sense of what you can do for them and how with a few lightweight interactions that really explain the product that let you get in there and start using it and see some value immediately. And then when you get that value, then jump in and you know, say, okay, if you want to continue or you want us to save this or you want to share what you just made or whatever, then we just need a couple of pieces of information so that we can create an account for you to save it. And at that point, you get what it does, you know if it's for you or not. And you either become a customer or you don't. And frankly, getting that sign up up front and then just finding out that person's not going to use your product once they figure out what it does is kind of worthless, right?", "start": 2685.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2782.2369230769227, "text": "Is there, are you a little bit at risk of the kind of Amazon one click problem where Amazon kind of had this, they introduced one click and they patented one click, but people didn't really and don't really like it because they can't actually tell that something's happened. So quite a lot of time, if you go to a site that does require a sign up, if you didn't have a sign up, it's a bit of a strange experience to just feel like, you know, am I actually using this app? Like, is my work going to be saved? I mean, what?", "start": 2758.92, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2802.0076190476193, "text": "Well, that's a, that's a design question, right? You've got to have the right design that answers those questions for people. Um, you know, I think you can make it awkward and weird that you don't know if you're using it or not, but you can also make it a very, um, sort of gradually engaging experience that makes it very clear what step you're in, what you're doing, how you can go to the next step and things like that.", "start": 2783.16, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2827.4454545454546, "text": "So do you think it would be a reasonable thing that if you had some sort of productivity app that they're going to use to create something, um, some, and you know, like, like you mentioned, like a to do list even or whatever that you just say, Hey, create lists, they go on, they start creating a list and then something comes up and a little pop up or some slide, something slides out or informs them and says, this hasn't been saved. And then at that point, if they hit save, then it asks for your email address and a password or something.", "start": 2802.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2850.1606666666667, "text": "Yeah. A great example of this that I use in that talk actually is this site called Jeannie G E N I. And you know, there's a bunch of different family tree makers out there. The vast majority of them, their first step is sign in, sign up, you know, create an account. What Jeannie does right on the first page is, okay, start making a family tree. Are you male or female? Give us your name and start family tree. And then the next step you're adding your mother and father.", "start": 2828.4, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2852.4475636363636, "text": "So you're invested, you're, you're invested by the time you even think about signing up.", "start": 2852.2799999999997, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2874.6456808988764, "text": "Yeah. Within like two clicks, you've already made a family tree. It's like, wallah, you're successful. Oh. And by the way, that's the entire purpose of Jeannie to make family trees. So within, you know, a couple interactions, you've done what you came there to do, right? You've been successful. And in the meantime, you learned what the software is and what it does for you. And you didn't do it by filling in a form and agreeing to a whole bunch of shit up front.", "start": 2856.12, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2878.486666666666, "text": "Right.", "start": 2878.3199999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 2910.7440969696972, "text": "And I think that's, you know, that's a productivity application, making family trees. Sure. Uh, and you can apply that kind of thinking to a lot of different models, right? And most of the time people don't, they just don't think about the first time experience beyond, Oh, we need to sign up for them. Oh, and we need to, you know, really drive people to sign up and tell them why they should sign up. And that's like the extent of their thinking about the first time experience. Imagine, imagine if everything in the world worked like that. Imagine if you go into a restaurant, right? And they're forcing you to sign up and it's just, it's just crazy.", "start": 2879.56, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2914.973169230769, "text": "Could it apply to Twitter and Facebook?", "start": 2914.92, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 2936.5709090909095, "text": "Yeah. And Twitter has actually been doing this. Uh, I've talked with a few of the folks at Twitter and they're, they're very on board with this idea of gradual engagement. In fact, I wrote an article recently about how they applied, uh, some of the gradual engagement principles by adding a step to their signup flow. And they increased conversion by like 25 to 40% in terms of, uh, engagement, increased engagement.", "start": 2916.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 2969.9114285714286, "text": "Have you seen a movie called man on a wire? Uh, sounds familiar, but it's about a guy who type wrote, walked across the twin towers. And uh, one of the things that they do in that is to, to get the, the, this big iron rope across those twin towers is they take a bow and arrow and they shoot across a little a ball of thread and then they pull that, that ball of thread and then that gets a bigger piece of rope and then that gets a bigger piece of rope and gradually they get to this big iron cable. This, this whole gradual, um, uh, involvement thing sounds a lot, sounds similar to that as a metaphor.", "start": 2937.76, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3001.7984533333333, "text": "Yeah. You can use that in metaphor. And also is that where I stole actually a big piece of that from as a Will Wright, who's the guy who wrote, uh, the Sims and Spore and I saw him give a talk a long time ago where he said in my games, I focus on making people successful in the first five seconds of play. So, you know, in Spore, you're a little creature and within the first five seconds you eat something, you get a little bit bigger. I can do this. Oh, I'm great. You know, or in Mario, you start up and all of a sudden you get a gold coin right in front of you and you power up.", "start": 2970.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3004.6466666666665, "text": "Right.", "start": 3004.48, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3012.8834782608697, "text": "So right off the bat, they make you successful and that teaches you how the game works. Because in Spore, for example, you're running around and eating a bunch of stuff at the beginning. So you grow.", "start": 3005.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3014.968223255814, "text": "And you're also a little bit vested, right?", "start": 3014.92, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3016.81152, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 3016.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3017.0733333333333, "text": "You've already done something.", "start": 3017.04, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3040.63376, "text": "Oh, I got bigger. Yeah, exactly. So I just like that kind of thinking about engaging people. Right. I hate the kind of thinking of we need to create a record set in our database with some name value pairs for, you know, first name, last name, email address, all that crap. It's just, I don't know, it's treating people as a as a as a data set in a database rather than a human being.", "start": 3018.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3056.881852631579, "text": "Let's say you have a website that basically you have a paid product and really that your only real access to that is as a paid product. But would you then go with this? So you'd get to the front page and you could start using that product and you wouldn't. Would you mention that it's a paid product at that point?", "start": 3043.16, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3076.6729882352947, "text": "Well, I think this is this is the model a lot of those companies are coming to is they all have sort of a freemium version. Right. And a lot of them allow you to start using it, figure out what you're doing, and then within the product, they message you to get into paid features. And the amount of companies that I see moving to that model, to me, indicates that it's actually a decent model.", "start": 3059.0000000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3086.131428571429, "text": "So would you mention anything about paying when you hit the page in the first place? I guess what I'm trying to say is, is that sneaky not to mention the paying aspect the first time you hit the page?", "start": 3078.76, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3145.8822736842108, "text": "I was talking to a guy from Smug Mug recently in Boston, and he showed me the before and after designs that they did for their service, which is a paid service. And the before view had all the stuff about all the different rates and everything and what it was going to be when they redesigned it. They totally simplified it. They got rid of all that upfront information about understanding what kind of account you have. And they just got you in and going. And he said, you know, the amount of value that they've extracted from that process has been like 200 percent. Wow. Interesting. And it's all about, you know, just managing the. Let me get to put this into a real world perspective. You go and meet somebody in the street. Right. And you say, hey, I'm going to meet somebody in the street. And you say, hey, my name's Luke. First name, last name, email address. Agree to my terms of service. Where do you live? How do I contact you? You know, it's just totally unnatural. Right. Instead, there's an actual conversation there that happens. And there's this gradual process by which you get to know that person. You decide if you want to talk to them ever again or not.", "start": 3087.32, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3155.0251282051286, "text": "That would be a great viral video of saying that if people were web forms or web apps, you know, enjoying all the mistakes as just real people, this is how", "start": 3149, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3216.881657142857, "text": "they behave. Actually, that is a methodology that you can, once again, circle back to the beginning. We're talking about what can some developers do? There's actually a really great exercise that I've seen a number of folks do where you just put like a browser Chrome around one person and they respond the way the interface responds to a human being. They try to have a conversation. So I saw somebody do this recently around like an event planning forum and one person was acting out the role of the forum. The other person was acting out the role of a human being. And so a human being comes up to the forum and says, hey, you know, I'm thinking of maybe having an event at your location and the farmer's first name. And the guy says, oh, you know, well, do you guys actually what kind of size groups can I have here? First name. OK, I guess I'll give you my first name. When can I find out how what kind of group I had here? Last name. And you just start laughing. Right. But really quickly, you realize how those interactions work. And it's sad, but it's true.", "start": 3158.64, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3218.9317538461537, "text": "That's great. Interesting.", "start": 3218.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3220.0685714285714, "text": "It's great. Yeah, it's pretty good.", "start": 3220.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3258.3866057142855, "text": "Well, so another another presentation that I found interesting of yours and I haven't had a chance to watch the video, but I was looking at the slides and it looks it's very timely for me because I actually have a couple of mobile projects that I'm going to be starting. And the title of the presentation was Mobile First, as in the fact that rather than people design or rather than designers, developers thinking the website first and then the the the mobile app as sort of like a retrofitting that onto or trying to take the web experience and put it on the mobile app, they're thinking the mobile first as experience. And I mean, you know, I'd love to hear your your sort of talk on that.", "start": 3221.2, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3327.124430769231, "text": "Well, I think I think you nailed the crux of the argument, which is traditionally the desktop version is done first and the mobile support. But there's a lot of reasons why the inverse actually makes more sense. And the kind of three that I call out in the presentation I've been talking about a lot, I've been giving this talk across a number of different places. The first one is, hey, mobile is just really exploding right now and taking advantage of that opportunity. I think the mobile Web, according to Morgan Stanley's Internet research, is growing eight times faster than the original Web group, which is just nuts. And every study after study, you see that those those those numbers are not only coming true, they're actually moving faster. So there's a huge opportunity, huge growth to mobile has these natural constraints. The screen size are small. The connections are crappy. People are using a single thumb, which very much forces you to prioritize, constrain and figure out what the core value you're giving people is at each point in the process of your application. When you got ten, twenty four by seven, sixty eight, you can fit a lot of shit on that page. I'm sorry. Should I be swearing? Maybe I shouldn't be swearing.", "start": 3262.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3328.7363636363634, "text": "No, it's fine. As long as you're swearing at Justin, swear at him.", "start": 3328.6, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3335.4101760000003, "text": "OK, I think she likes that word. Just don't go any deeper.", "start": 3332.04, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3361.6955555555555, "text": "OK, I won't go any deeper. What can you say? Crap. At ten, twenty four by seven, sixty eight, you can fill a lot of crap in there. Most of what people put in there is crap. When you go down to like a 320 by 480 or standard ish mobile screen, you got to throw away 80 percent of the stuff you had on the screen, which means you need to have a real clear understanding of what needs to be on that screen and why. And that requires focus that requires prioritization, which is all just good for design in general.", "start": 3336.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3364.0361290322576, "text": "You know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.", "start": 3363.8799999999997, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3405.2304, "text": "Go on. I'm just going to give you the third part of why mobile first. The third part of mobile first is having a device that's in your pocket and it has all the sensors and capabilities that these devices have actually introduces a lot of opportunities for innovation. You know, people's exact location down to 10 meters, right? They have embedded cameras so you can do video. They have embedded audio controls. They have touch based controls. They have digital compasses that know the orientation of the user. They have accelerometers. You can tell how the device is oriented. Having all those capabilities in front of you lets you just really start rethinking what your service can do and how you can present the same information to people using those capabilities, which is great for thinking of new ideas and new experiences.", "start": 3366.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3434.706153846154, "text": "Right. One thing that I like about building mobile apps, I feel like because it limits what you can do, it's it's it's makes it easier not to screw up as much as long as you know what the interaction is supposed to be. It seems like when you have an entire Web page, it's like, OK, I want to do this. But now what do I do with all this extra space? And, you know, just sort of like, OK, well, this is clearly a table view. Right. And I click on something and then something else happens. It just seems from a non-artist perspective, it's just a little less daunting.", "start": 3410.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3468.2313919999997, "text": "Yeah, it's it's it's a lot simpler, you know, but at the same time, it's harder. Right. I mean, it forces you to get to simplicity, but it also really focuses you on nailing the tasks because the mobile environment is a lot more of a task focused environment than it is a browse or navigate kind of environment. In fact, you don't want to browse around and navigate too much on mobile devices because you've got low connectivity, you don't have a lot of time, you're trying to get stuff done. And so you have to have that rigor of making sure that process of getting things done on mobile accounts for all those constraints.", "start": 3438.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3485.7821454545456, "text": "But does that mean. OK, but so now let's let's have a look at the inverse equation. A lot of apps were created for the iPhone and then along comes the iPad. Now, people had a lot more screen real estate, so they had to then rethink and make use of that new screen real estate. So how does your theory work regarding that?", "start": 3470.88, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3568.812453012048, "text": "Well, perhaps non-ironically, one of the first guidelines in the iPad development guideline is just because you got more screen real estate, don't get rid of all the simplicity that you had in your iPhone app and don't, you know, don't start adding features and all this other stuff just to craft it up. I think what you are then able to do is introduce stuff that makes those interactions you had in the iPhone more contextually relevant or more engaging or more active. Right. The iPad in general, this you have this whole conversation about like the context of different devices. So I think that's a big topic right now that a lot of people are wrestling with. But the iPad is a leanback device. It's like a casual ish, more content consumption driven experience than say something like the iPhone. So it's study after study. What you see is people use the iPad on the couch or they use it before they go to bed at night, which I actually did last night to read and they use it to read things. They use it to browse. So the kind of design and the kind of interaction you have for those contexts is pretty different than the kind of context you have. Hey, I got my iPhone in my pocket and I'm trying to get to, you know, a restaurant right now. Very different use case than I'm thinking of having a trip to Paris. Let me play with the maps and explore it like you might do on an iPad in a different context, a different UI. And that's a much bigger issue than just adding stuff when you move to that device.", "start": 3487.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3597.506651428572, "text": "Right. Right. You have one presentation. Let me get the name of it here. That was sort of a combination of the previous two that we just described, which is called Moving Beyond Input, Moving Beyond Forms, an overview of how Web applications can collect input through both mobile devices and desktop software, et cetera. You know, this seems like it brings some of these concepts together. If you wouldn't mind talking just a little bit about that one as well.", "start": 3574.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3657.4351219512196, "text": "Yeah. So that one is focused really on we need to start thinking about ways that people can interact with our services, both online and offline. Let me back up a second. Contribution is just a hugely important thing for software, especially social software, which is kind of what all software is going to become over time, I think, because it's fundamentally boils down to people. Right. And people use things. And so in that kind of environment, contribution is really important. And once again, you know, the default thinking around contribution and software has been so far input elements and forms and things like that. Yet we have all these new capabilities coming to us. We have all these opportunities to create different kinds of startup experiences, not just sign up forms. And so, you know, let's kind of go a little bit above the default thinking and kind of approach the problem from a different way. It's essentially the last part, the part three of the mobile first talk that we talked about. And the sign up form was died, kind of combined into one, as you suggested.", "start": 3599.9600000000005, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3669.2363675675674, "text": "You're working on a stealth startup. And I know that it's, I guess, given the fact that you listed as stealth, does that mean there's nothing you can say about it?", "start": 3661.8, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3677.514255737705, "text": "Not yet. I can say we're chugging along to a little bit of an alpha software release and we've got some users in the system trying to break it for us.", "start": 3670.68, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3682.987490909091, "text": "Well, I mean, is it web software or is it desktops? I mean, is it mobile? Is it, you know, it's yeah, it's everywhere.", "start": 3680.7599999999998, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3688.823884337349, "text": "You know, that's sort of what the web is these days. We have yet to make a TV version, but we've been focused on all the other versions.", "start": 3686.04, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3694.0193582417583, "text": "Interesting. Right. So when can we expect to see something from hopefully in the next month", "start": 3693.84, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3697.9738666666667, "text": "or so, we'll be popping that out.", "start": 3697.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3700.726604255319, "text": "How long have you been working on the software?", "start": 3700.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3703.0896533333334, "text": "On software period or on this?", "start": 3703, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3704.8051851851856, "text": "Well, just say, yeah, yeah, I guess the startup thing.", "start": 3704.6800000000003, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3721.8181230769233, "text": "Yeah. So I left Yahoo at the beginning of April and I think we started kind of headstrong on this towards the beginning of June. So about four or five months ish from, you know, company formation, idea generation, picking an idea, starting to build it, design, test.", "start": 3707.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3724.483718918919, "text": "Are you the founder or co-founder or?", "start": 3724.4, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3727.403031578948, "text": "Yeah, I'm a co-founder. I have two partners, one on the technical side and one on the business side.", "start": 3726.44, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3733.0273015873017, "text": "And I'm sorry, I missed the part. When is when are you going to release sort of some public data?", "start": 3731.8, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3738.2821953488374, "text": "Hopefully in the next month or so. You know, we'll release it when it's ready.", "start": 3736.0400000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3740.8768, "text": "Does it have a name? Does it have a public name?", "start": 3740.8, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3743.7466531645573, "text": "We have a working name right now, so I'm hesitant to put it out there just yet.", "start": 3743.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3759.7630222222224, "text": "But OK, that's fine. It's called Google. Yeah, that's right. Um, before that, I saw in your bio that you were an entrepreneur residence at Benchmark Capital. I'd be really curious. Oh, you still are.", "start": 3747.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3760.8604800000003, "text": "They're still there.", "start": 3760.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3761.955461818182, "text": "Oh, so they're so Benchmark is incubating this startup.", "start": 3761.84, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3781.6317784615385, "text": "Is that the entrepreneur residence role is kind of designed to get people into their next thing, especially in the startup space. Right. So some people that take an EIR role go and join an existing startup in a company's portfolio. But a lot of them mostly go on to start startups. Right. So that's kind of the process I'm going through right now.", "start": 3764.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3800.100988235294, "text": "OK, so when you do start working on a startup, then you're still considered an entrepreneur residence. I sort of thought that when you were an entrepreneur residence, you were sort of in between gigs, so to speak, that you were participating in on evaluating, you know, deals that were coming in. Is that true?", "start": 3784.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3813.9222471910116, "text": "Yes, that is all true. They do it in kind of six month increments. OK, so, you know, I mean, I got a six month engagement there and during part of it, I was a lot more focused on what you're talking about. And during the latter half, I've been a lot more focused on actually building, building a", "start": 3801.8, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3826.7457032258067, "text": "product. So how does that work before you start working on your actual startup, your startup? Well, first, I'd like to ask, how did how do you even become an entrepreneur resident? That seems like a pretty cool gig if you can get it.", "start": 3817.5600000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3845.213025, "text": "Yeah. As many things happen in Silicon Valley, it's through the strength of kind of our network. So my partner in the current startup, Semplar, he was an EIR who worked with one of the partners at Benchmark Capital previously. So through that relationship is kind of how we made that happen.", "start": 3829.6400000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3855.7536, "text": "Right. And do you when you're doing that before you're working on your startup, I mean, are you getting paid a real salary or are you just kind of there's a kind of like thing working like a graduate stipend kind of thing?", "start": 3848.2, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3860.8656250000004, "text": "Yeah, we've we've been bootstrapped up until now. So the three of us have not been taking any salary as a startup.", "start": 3857.88, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3865.156367567568, "text": "Oh, so you're an entrepreneur resident. You're not even getting paid, really.", "start": 3863.88, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3884.641468852459, "text": "Oh, no. That depends on per firm. Right. OK. It really matters on the VC firm whether or not they're paying you. Many of them will give you, you know, space to work and support to the network and rely on you. Some of them have paid engagements. Other ones don't. Right. It's part of the actual startup we're doing. We are using founder money right now and not taking a salary.", "start": 3866.28, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3907.859768888889, "text": "So did you when the relationship, the entrepreneur residence situation started for you, was it the conversation that you have an idea or you and a couple of your co-founders or potential co-founders have an idea and you're going to work it out over the next few months? Or do they just say, hey, come jump in with us. We'll see what happens. I mean, how did that.", "start": 3890.32, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 3917.366543283582, "text": "More of the latter than the former. Right. You know, we started our company started out as a team first, a market second and idea third. So that's sort of the process we've been going through.", "start": 3910.1600000000003, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3924.9466857142856, "text": "That's an interesting that's an interesting way to do it. So I guess you had a lot of whiteboard brainstorming sessions about, OK, what are we", "start": 3921.92, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3955.814019047619, "text": "going to make? We had a long list of things that we wanted to do. Right. You know, at first our exploration was what space do we think actually makes sense for us given the type of opportunity we want to go after. So there's a lot of debate and conversation around that. And once we sort of nailed the space and everybody felt really good about the opportunity there, then we went through a lot, a large number of iterations on actual ideas. And it took us a while to settle in on the concept we're going for right now. And, you know, it's always as with all things startup, everything is always in flux.", "start": 3928.72, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 3960.482380487805, "text": "How did you test your market assumptions?", "start": 3960.36, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 3988.1158564102566, "text": "Well, we're testing them right now. OK, cool. You don't have to test the market assumptions. You can just basically say, hey, this market has this and this opportunity. Here's this and this space to play. Right. That's this relatively easy to model at a high level. What you need to do is really say is do we have a viable thing to address that market or not? And today, I think really that's tested by putting people into a product and seeing what they do and how they react.", "start": 3963.36, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4000.8329142857147, "text": "Is there somewhere that doesn't give anything away where listeners of this show could basically send an email to you saying, hey, when you've got something, I'm interested in knowing what the hell it is.", "start": 3990.16, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4007.5133333333333, "text": "Yeah, they can go to BagCheck.com and enter their email address on there and we'll ping them over sometime. It might take a bit, but we'll ping them.", "start": 4001.76, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4010.571266666667, "text": "You said BagCheck as in?", "start": 4010.48, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4012.2729142857143, "text": "Yeah, as in B-A-G-C-H-E-C-K.", "start": 4011.96, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4023.5316000000003, "text": "OK, it's important that people know how to spell because my product that I've been working on, our bootstrapping Appignite, everybody at like as an ignite an application, everyone thinks it thinks we're saying Epic Knight.", "start": 4015.5200000000004, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4029.344423529412, "text": "Yeah, we actually have it. We actually have a spellable word.", "start": 4027.84, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4041.329032258064, "text": "In fact, someone actually thought we someone actually thought I don't know if they said this jokingly or not. They thought we were saying a pig at night. So, yeah, the choice of naming.", "start": 4032.44, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4044.0026531645567, "text": "Yeah. So I'm just going to bag B-A-G-C-H-E-C-K.com and I'm entering in my email", "start": 4043.6, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4051.5025488372094, "text": "address right now. OK, there you go. So, Justin, do you have any more questions?", "start": 4049.24, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4068.633976470588, "text": "I think I think that's that's been a really informative show. In actual fact, I'm going to all of my developer friends, I'm going to forward them to this because this to me has been the 101. If you're if you're like a bootstrapper and a solo developer, this show will what we've discussed so far.", "start": 4053.08, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4098.148571428571, "text": "Even if you're not a solo developer, I mean, if you're part of a small startup or even you're working on an internal team and you're trying to make your product better, I mean, everything that he's that Luke is saying and all the things that he's trying to teach you through his presentations apply to any size company. So, yeah. And also, I wouldn't say just in general, I don't think our market is just bootstrappers, our listeners. I think we got a lot of people who aren't bootstrappers. So, OK, I don't I think there are a lot of people I can tell by the people who list by the comments we get that there's a range of people who do kind of things I described and probably a lot of other things.", "start": 4069.36, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4099.272048484849, "text": "So I've been told you've told me.", "start": 4099.12, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4130.404528301887, "text": "OK. The other thing I'd say is if you go to Luke's site, which is Luke W dot com, he has a lot of writings that are, you know, like, I guess, PDFs or pages or, you know, just HTML. But if you go to his presentation section, there are PDFs and videos that he's given. And they look great. So all these things that we talk about, mobile first, sign up forms must die. And there's about like, I don't know, like 20 or 30 of these things look like they're very much worth sitting, take some time and watching.", "start": 4101.72, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4134.274978461538, "text": "If you want to burn a weekend or two on PowerPoint, there you go.", "start": 4134.08, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 4168.028101818182, "text": "Yeah. Well, I'll probably watch the video, but I'm telling you, you know, because, you know, as someone who's creating a, you know, a web application and mobile apps, I'm, you know, I I'm very confident my ability to create and write code. And I'm fairly confident my ability to create a decent user experience. But the design aspect and honing the user experience of all these things is I, you know, I definitely could use some work. So I think what you're teaching here is extremely valuable. So everybody, if you're interested and you think you need to work on this stuff or think, you know, go to Luke W dot com and check it out.", "start": 4138.200000000001, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 4174.563008, "text": "Luke, it's been absolutely fantastic to have you on the show. Thank you very much. Thank you guys for having me.", "start": 4172.08, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 4182.250239999999, "text": "It's been great. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Really great video. All right. That's a wrap. We're out.", "start": 4176.96, "speaker": "Person 2"}], "transcriptByParagraphs": [{"end": 0, "text": "Welcome to episode 87 of TechSing, hosted by myself, Justin Vincent, and Jason Roberts. On today's show, our guest is Luke Wroblewski, who's a user experience expert, and whose work has reached more than 700 million people worldwide. Luke is also an entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital. Hey, Luke, welcome to the show.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Hey, how are you guys doing?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So as a show that's primarily about tech and startups, we've interviewed a lot of technologists and entrepreneurs, but you're actually the first UI expert that we've had on the show. So I suppose the first question I'd like to ask you is if you could give us a little bit of an overview of the design field as it stands. I mean, there are web designers, there's user experience, UI experts, and I don't know, I guess I'd just like to get a better understanding of what are all the roles and how do you see it currently?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, you know, it really, the quintessential design answer to every question is it depends. And so I'll sort of start off with that answer, because it really does depend on who you ask and what profession and kind of background they come from. The design profession, especially with interactive software, a lot of people came to it from a large diversity of backgrounds when the web kind of took off.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And so you had people coming from human factors backgrounds, from cognitive psychology backgrounds, from computer science backgrounds, from graphic design backgrounds, library and information science backgrounds. And, you know, in truth, all those factors really add up to creating an appropriate user interface for a software product, whether it's on the web or on the desktop or on your mobile device. You know, you sort of have to think about how does the information structure, how do people make their way through it? How are we presenting that information visually?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "How are we presenting that information textually, too? So things like copywriting kind of play into it. So it's really an opportunity for a lot of people from different fields to come in with an area of vertical expertise, and someone might be an incredible copywriter. So they add a lot of clarity to an interface. And then if they pick up more horizontal skills around sort of interaction design or maybe information architecture, then they become a more well-rounded, quote-unquote, full-on product designer. And people can do that from the development side, too, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "There's no reason someone that's been building things and has had to deal with interaction issues like feedback, state management, you know, flows and processes couldn't do that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "What would be the difference between UI and UX? That's something that often gets asked.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, you know, I don't like to get into the semantics, but in general, user experience tries to be very, very broad and cover everything that somebody can encounter with a product. Some people go very, very broad with it and cover not just the experience of the product, but the experience of the retail store.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So if you think of the quintessential example of Apple, they've got retail stores, they've got hardware, they've got software, they've got customer support, they've got a web presence, they have marketing, all that together, in many people's eyes, informs the user experience, which is pretty big, right? It's a lot of stuff.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And that's why I tend to say, hey, interface design is a little bit more concrete, it deals with software, it sort of deals with interaction design, visual design, content, and I think you can wrap your head around that space a little bit more than you can around user experience sometimes.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It seems like sort of the naive understanding of the field is that you have the coders who build a product and then you have a web designer. But it seems like that's not really the case anymore, at least for the more sophisticated products.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You have designers who might actually draw pictures of how things might look, but the people who try and come up with a flow of tasks, or I guess what you might call the workflow, and what elements are seen on the screen at any given time, and maybe even where they're placed, and how big they are, that's what the UI designer does that, if it's sort of at a bigger firm?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, it's such a blur. At bigger firms, there tends to be kind of, I guess, on the actual UI design side, there tends to be a couple roles. So many companies specialize around visual design and creative design, so they've got somebody who's sort of responsible for the look and feel, the brand representation, sort of the overall visceral aspects of the design, then they're likely to have an interaction designer or a UI designer, depending on the title, and that person is responsible for what are the elements on each piece of the flow, how does the flow go, how are they organized.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Sometimes there's even deeper specialization in that area where you have someone called an information architect whose job is to manage just very large sets of data. That's where that usually is most useful. When you're dealing with very large catalogs, you need to have ways to navigate through them, and you have to have ways to make relationships with it, assign metadata to it, label it appropriately. In the early days of the web, this process of sort of information organization and architecture is very important, because most sites were essentially navigation fests, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You just had a bunch of pages, and the primary user interaction was move between them. So you had to know where you are, where you can go, what other options are there, so information architecture is a lot more important. But in today's web, you know, people navigate so organically through things like search and links and feeds that a lot of times that structure is just kind of overkill, and it's the interactions that matter a bit more. So I think you're seeing more of a focus on the UI and interaction design than the information architecture, but some companies still specialize.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So take a site like Craigslist, right? Is that essentially pure information architecture without any design?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You know, everything is designed whether that design is intentional or not, right? There is no, you know, the alternative to, there is no no design, it's either good design or bad design. And some people praise Craigslist's design, that's a double plural there, because, you know, it is that simple, doesn't really have any thrills, it's just here's all the stuff. Other people find it overwhelming, and it's just, you know, link fest, they don't know", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "where to go.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And, you know, especially kind of the garishness of some of the postings in there, really turn them off.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I suppose one question I have for you is, how important do you think the design is to the product making money, which is kind of, I guess, joined to this current discussion about Craigslist?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, not so much making money, just being successful is probably better.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, well, you know, nobody sees the bits underneath the surface, except for web developers who sometimes go to a website and look at view source and check out the code. But to everybody else, the design, and by that, I mean, the full interface, visual and interaction and information, that is the product, right? So how successful is the product to the product is pretty much very successful.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So it's basically 100%, you know, it's the most important thing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, because, I mean, again, nobody's really experiencing it through, you know, your JavaScript code, right? They're not going through things function by function, or actually looking at your markup tags when they're using a product. They're using the UI components you have, they're looking at the screen with their eyes, or even if they're in a screen reader, they're using all of the actual content you have in there to read and understand what they can do. So the design of the product is the product.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's interesting, because a lot of the people who listen to our show are bootstrappers and, you know, bootstrapping developers, and usually don't have the money to kind of afford or engage a designer. So they end up having to do this, do that themselves.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, well, it depends, you know, there's many of the software that we use was actually created by developers that have just either a sense of aesthetic, or understand where they have gaps, and fill them through the opinions and testing of others, right? I worked with Larry Tesler during my time at Yahoo, he was one of the early engineers on the Mac and kind of the father of cut and paste, right? And he was an engineer by training, but he did design work.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Like he would, I can't remember, I think he was, I'm spacing on his last name, but he was working with someone else, Bill Atkinson, on this feature on the Mac. And during the day, Bill would come in, or during the night, Bill would come in and write code. And then Larry would come in in the morning, he'd test that code with users and try and get feedback. And he was doing it in a very sort of usability engineering kind of way. But it was design work, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And you know, that file edit, or copy and paste is so ubiquitous, and it's considered sort of a design of operating systems, but it was created by engineers.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It seems to me that what you describe as user experience, and I guess even interface design, is almost less about artistic design as it is in just trying to understand how humans are going to address the product. So it's almost like if you're talking to a salesperson, someone who's an expert in sales, they'll say, okay, look, this is how we want to set up the meeting, this is the things we need to say early on, this is how we manage the relationship. And they sort of develop this understanding of how an interaction process works and how to make sure that it's going to work out okay.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And you know, whereas the artistic aspect of like, okay, well, what colors are we going to make things and what fonts are we going to choose, typography and things, is sort of like the next step. Like, the first step is just trying to figure out the sort of stages of the experience. I mean, how do you think about it?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, like I was saying at the beginning, there's so many layers in all this, right? And they all kind of add up, which is why even though it's so easy to go make software on the web, not everything really does very well, right? And there's lots of issues around that. But people's impressions are formed so much by what they see and how they go through that flow. And that informs, you know, how they use the product, what they get it to do. And even little considerations can make a huge deal.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So just to talk about the visual design side of the coin, the first book I wrote, which was, yeah, I guess eight years ago or something like that, was called Sightseeing. And it was really about, at the time, there was this tension kind of that you're alluding to between design and, I guess, usability. So the usability experts were out there saying it must be functional above all else. If people can't understand it, they can't use it, it's pointless.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And there was a design crowd out there that was saying, well, it also has to be, you know, aesthetically pleasing and beautiful and, you know, visuals matter too. And so kind of the central thesis of that book that I wrote is that it's the two of the things together. And the visual design actually supports the usability. Because when you think about how you do visual design, there's essentially two intertwined parts. One is, you know, the color selection, the font selection, the image selection, the sort of creating an appropriate personality or brand or look and feel through the visuals.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But the other part is the visual organization. If you give something a lot of visual weight, that's the thing people are going to notice. If you make things look very similar visually, people are going to group that and associate them together. If you make things look very distinct, people will think they're separate functions or not consider them as part of the same process. And those kinds of visual design decisions play a huge role in usability, in how people can or can't use software.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Which is why, you know, again, the thesis there was these two things are intertwined and you can't really separate them.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And so is Apple the perfect real world example of how that all hangs together?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, interesting. I just was reading an interview last night in bed on my iPad, ironically, with the former CEO of Apple, John Sculley, talking about how he sort of understood the Steve Jobs method. Right. And one of the points that he made in there was he was talking very recently to someone who was a developer. And that developer had back to back meetings with Apple and Microsoft in the same day about whatever service they were doing. And when he went to Apple, the people in the room that everybody in the meeting deferred to was the designers.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "When he went to the Microsoft meeting, there was no designers in the room.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "In fact, I just read something this morning was talking about how Paul Graham's essay on the topic that the reason that Yahoo had so many problems and was passed up by Google was that it lost its hacker-centric culture and sort of the hackers were replaced by suits. But the argument that this guy made against that was that, well, Apple is not a hacker-centric culture. It's a designer-centric culture that the designers have the final say and they're the ones that are in the room for the big decisions are made. So in a sense, Apple is winning by design, not by winning by code.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. And, you know, I think that aesthetic carries through down across the whole company, right? When they say the designers have the final say, it's the designers have the final say through proxy of Steve Jobs because he gives such a damn about design, right? And they sort of channel his attention to details and focus on design. That's how decisions get made. And places like Google, you know, the founders or the co-founders are engineers. And so they sort of channel the value of engineering and technical solutions and things like that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And that kind of is what carries the weight over there. Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And, you know, all these founders. And it's interesting. It's a fractal because, you know, the person at the top will hire people who thinks the way that they do and they will hire people who they think who thinks the way they do. So essentially that will propagate throughout the company.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. That's how you make culture.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That's why a lot of, you know, the quote unquote suits say culture is really the most important thing in a company is the thing that aligns everybody along some similar vision. Otherwise, everybody's running around like a chicken with their head cut off in different directions. So they don't have this sort of shared sense of what they're doing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So what I'd be curious about is how you got into this field. I mean, it seems that people who become web designers often start out as graphic designers. They study design in school and they sort of migrate to the web or at least they did in the past when the web was younger. But what was your path to getting in this field?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, I was actually pretty similar. So I was I actually started out in engineering when I was in undergrad and I did close to a year of engineering that I decided that staying up late coding and this time it was, you know, what was it? C sharp was not for me. And so I switched over to the art and design program. And when I made that switch, I took a internship at NCSA, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, which at the time was where Mark Andreessen was building NCSA Mosaic.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, wait, hold on one second. So that first of all, that's really cool that you can get an internship like that. Where were you at? University of Illinois?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "University of Illinois. Champaign-Urbana. Because that's where that that's where the Champaign-Urbana because that's where the supercomputing center is located. Yeah. Exactly. So C sharp didn't come out until what, like 2000, around 2000 or so, 2001, 2002, but the Netscape and that whole thing was going on, or at least the first version of the Mosaic browser was what, like 93, 94? So maybe it was C++.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I may have my labeling wrong. Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It was C, C++ and then C sharp.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "C sharp came in the 2000s. Right. So yeah. C++ would have been. C++.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That was what I was doing. Okay.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Pre-Java.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Pre-Java. After this, they started actually teaching Java in the CS departments at University of Illinois.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. Because Java was sort of influenced, you know, well, it was influenced probably by a lot of things, but obviously it was influenced by C++ and then C sharp was influenced by Java.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But not to get off topic. Just a quick question. Did you know that something big was happening when you were there, like that Marc Andreessen was doing that?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Oh, well, yeah. The web was pretty amazing. You know, when I came on board, the browser was done. I mean, I wasn't part of the team that actually did Mosaic. My mentor at, when I later went on to do grad school, Colleen Bushel, she was actually the designer on, you know, designer in quotes here. She was the person from the design background that got involved in that project. She's the person responsible for the little spinning navigator that let you know that something was going on. Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I don't know if you guys use Mosaic, but it had this S with a little globe in the middle and that would sort of spin in the upper right hand corner to let you know page was loading. Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So that pretty much defined loading concepts in that way.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Still there. Right. You look at any browser, they still have it. IE had that with the spinning IE thing, Netscape did it with the spinning like little lighthouse or whatever. Yeah. So she did that. You know, she worked on a lot of the original Chrome stuff there too, with just the whole paradigm of what's home forward and back. But this is actually a really great re-segue or pullback to the first question you guys asked, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Because Andrew was a developer, Colleen was a designer and he was doing a lot of the decisions that ultimately impacted design coming from a development background, right? I don't know the full story of how back forward and home and all those things kind of came into fruition. But, you know, obviously everything that she did was a collaboration between him and her and the rest of the team over there.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's funny how you just take that stuff for granted. You kind of feel like it's always been there, but someone had to create those tools when that product was first invented.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. And I love those stories. I heard another story about how kind of the image tag came to fruition. And Jeffrey Veen was talking about this recently. So he was talking about an email exchange. There was like a mailing list early in the day that Tim Bergers-Lee and Mark Andreessen were on. And Mark Andreessen fired off a proposal and said, oh, here's how I'm thinking of doing the image. Other people chimed in with different ideas. And then I guess a week later, he said, OK, I implemented it like this, IMG.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And you know, other people chimed in, but he's the one that shipped the code. So it went out there and Veen calls it a rough consensus running code. And it's amazing how many times that that's the thing that actually makes a decision, right? When somebody just goes and does the thing. Oh, OK. It's done. All right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It kind of works. Let's go with that, right? That's right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That often happens in large companies as well. I've seen that in corporate culture. Basically when you get a doer, he just does it. And then all of a sudden, the corporate company will basically follow the lead of the doer.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, the major problem is most corporations don't do anything.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right, right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "There's a lot of undoers or non-doers, and that's what slows them down so much.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So when you switched over to the design program, I mean, did you have a good sense of design coming in? Did you have someone who was sort of good at drawing or painting as a kid? So you that was like a dual sort of talent that you had that you knew going into college. So when the engineering wasn't working out as well as you liked, you thought, oh, yeah, I'll just go design. Or did you just completely say, hey, I have no idea if I have any talent, but I'm going to try it anyway.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, I was always both sides. Right. When I was working with computers, I was using them to do art. Or when I was, you know, back when I was programming basic, you know, who knows when that was. But I would use it to make like ASCII art of spaceships launching, using like the little print F commands. So I always had this sort of duality. I would definitely not say I'm a very strong artist. There's much better illustrators and painters and graphic designers out there than me.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think where I have sort of a good skill set is really the combination of what can the technology do and how can the design support that. And that's sort of what I've carried with me as I've moved on.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right. And so when you were working, when you moved over to the design field, I mean, how much of that was just sort of a real abstract sense of design versus I mean, I guess back in when was this was ninety, ninety four, five, six, ninety five, ninety five, ninety six. So that was probably before anyone's really thinking about web design because it was barely even graphical at that point. So you learned sort of from just think about things in terms of just standard design of like graphic design, I guess, of any kind.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. That's what the training was. You know, we had other tools around kind of learning the digital desktop publishing tool. So back then we were working on things like Cork Express two or three or whatever it was. And we did a lot of basic design stuff with the stuff that really caught my attention was a lot of the information design work. So again, just going back to Colleen Bushel, because she really had a strong influence on me back in my grad and undergrad days. She worked with Edward Tufte, who's written a lot of the quintessential books on information design. Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "In fact, the one that has kind of the storm cloud animation on the cover, I think it's", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "the visual visual display of quantitative information. Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That's it. So that was the project that she worked with Tufte on. And, you know, so I think she took a lot from that experience that she passed on down to me and her students just about the information display principles that design enables. And that was what I gravitated to a lot more than, you know, just sort of, I guess, the art and graphic design aspect of things. I was a lot more interested in the information design and in how you can do layering and separation and move people through information and all that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And couple that with, you know, all of a sudden there's a digital format for doing that, a.k.a. the web. And that was really, really exciting at the time.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "When a coder kind of makes a first draft of something and they don't know anything about design and they don't know how to lay things out or whatever, what would you what is the kind of most common rookie mistakes that you've seen?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think the most common mistakes are there's really no hierarchy and separation. You know, everything is sort of equal and everything's fighting for everybody's attention. The really simple rule that I use that I think people that helps people understand this is everybody's screaming, nobody gets hurt. Right. So if you put out a layout and every single button looks exactly the same and there's 20 buttons on it, what do you do?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's difficult for the user to understand which button to click.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, there's just no prioritization at all. Right. So we come to each one of our interactions of software is just a set amount of cognitive load that we have to use on that task. And if you burn it trying to figure out what the heck's going on, then that becomes a pretty frustrating experience pretty quickly.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So how do you how do you fix that? What what do you do right to stop that from happening?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So I think the first thing you can start to think about is, you know, what is the appropriate grouping of the items on this page and how can I use visual information to indicate that so people can use or their natural gestalt understanding of the world to form associations to get understanding. That's kind of one thing is grouping. And the other thing becomes sort of a prioritization. And when you realize what's most important, secondarily important or not really important at this point, the third bucket of stuff just get rid of.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But once you realize sort of what's most important and secondarily important, then you can apply more or less visual weight and to the more important things. And visual weight is really just about creating contrast. So adding if one thing is red, circular and big and another thing is small, square and gray, guess which one has stronger visual weight because of the contrast, because of the contrast between those things. So you can start to balance how much weight you give things and assign and associate that with the prioritization of what's on the screen.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And while all of a sudden you're thinking about design, is there a way to use something that isn't that has low contrast for use?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, well, you know, the human eye basically picks out differences between things, right? That's sort of how our brain is wired. So if you have something that's really low contrast and you just have a little bit of contrast that'll pop up. So if a composition is totally gray, everything is the same shade of gray and then something's a little darker shade of gray that'll pop out because of that difference.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So is that like, for example, on the Apple OS in the title bar, you know, for a typical app where they have the name of the document that you currently have open. So it's sort of, it lets you know that the name of the document, but it doesn't completely overtake your eye because it's just a little off the gray of the main bar.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, that's actually a pretty common technique. So what you want to, what you can do to set context in applications, this is why a lot of Chrome is gray, is because you want that stuff to recede in the background and let the actual things you're interacting with come forward, right? When you're using say like a Photoshop or what have you, you don't want all of the icons and the tools for that application screaming at you because you want to focus on the photo you're editing or on the page you're designing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So your software shouldn't really get in the way of your framework of what you're doing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, I'm a firm believer that the design shouldn't be in the way of tools and services and things like that. You know, a great analogy that my friend Jared Spool uses frequently is air conditioning. You know, when's the last time you were in a meeting and somebody said, Hey, I just, I just want to point out whoever set the air conditioning. It's just great. You know, not too hot, not too cold. You just did a fantastic job. Nobody says that, right? When it's working, it's totally invisible to you. When people talk about the air conditioning is when it's too hot or it's too cold.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "When it's working, it's totally invisible. Same with design. When it's not working, you shouldn't, you know, you shouldn't even know it's there.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So like Facebook is a good example of that in a lot of people go, Oh, but Facebook's so bland. But actually the reason why it's bland is so that the content comes out. So the people's pictures and what people say comes out and you kind of ignore the rest of Facebook.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. They spend a lot of time tuning the presentation of things, especially the feed. I think over time as the site has grown, there's definitely areas where they could introduce some hierarchy and contrast to things because there's situations where they're just not taking advantage of that very well, everything's blue and gray and that's it, right? That's all they have to work with.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So I think there's an opportunity for them to tune that a bit more, but the rigor and the detail of things like the way the comments are represented in the feed and the way they call out the action and the feed and all that, I guarantee there's a whole bunch of testing and thinking and reiteration underneath that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Is space important in design and what role does it play?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, again, it boils down to the contrast, right? By putting space around something, you call attention to it. Sort of one of the principles underlying how we interpret visual information is that we'll use the empty spaces around things to form groupings and associations. So by introducing space in the right place, you can put focus on particular areas or you can pace people through things or you can create distinctions between elements.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "A lot of people think, oh, white space, that's for aesthetic effect, but it's actually very important for parsing and for moving people through information in a way that's quick and scannable. And when you just go in and fill in all your white space with content, because you can, you break the ability of people many times to make their way through that information effectively.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Justin, can I ask a few questions?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yes.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Sorry, I've been hooking the line a little bit. Let me just say something, okay? So before this podcast started, Luke, Justin called me up and said, listen, I only slept for two hours last night and I had some fillings replaced, so I have a headache, so you're going to have to carry the show. I'm really in a bad mood. And I was like, he's all fired up, he won't even let me talk. He won't even let me ask you a question. So you got him excited. He's like, you know, so okay, so that's good. So, all right. My question is this.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I had an idea at one point to write like a blog post that we sort of tutorial-like design or user design 101 for hackers. Because it seems like there's just like a basic idea of what you want to do. You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right? You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right? You want to make sure that you have the right tools, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And it would seem like something like that would be really useful just to get non-designers who are building software up over a basic bar so they can express themselves in the code or at least their first version of the design before they really even involve a designer. And I was actually going to do this for my, sort of like a, I want this for myself, so I'll use it as a learning experience by writing it. This may go on these things that I never end up doing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So if you were going to do something like that, what would be your sort of like, you know, what would be the basic elements that you would think a non-designer would need to understand to be a little better at doing that sort of thing?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. So we talked about some of those just basic understanding of the visual organization things, which is hierarchy, prioritization, visual weight, all that. And it's not really that rough to do. I actually wrote an article many years ago on just some of the basic principles underlying visual organization. So I might be able to save you some typing, but that's kind of step one, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And then, you know, people, I think really over focus on the color selection and the font selection and all those sorts of things that I'm not denying that that's important, but, you know, ultimately is your site blue or purple, is that really going to make or break it? Probably not. Right. I was working at eBay a number of years ago and then we were building a new product called eBay Express and the design team there made this thing orange, right? And they had all these supporting arguments about why it was orange.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And we went in and presented to the SVP who's funding the project and he, you know, he looked it over, we talked about things and he said, you know, everything's looking pretty good, but, you know, hey, can you come back to me with just a couple of other options on the color scheme? Let me see what else you guys can come up with.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So the team went back and instead of just exploring a couple of their color palettes, they created this whole presentation about why it's orange, you know, orange is associated with value and it's a unique color that we can own on the web and this, you know, it's this really important defining thing for the next generation of eBay. And they went back and made some of those arguments and, you know, the SVP said at the end of it, he's like, look, you guys, I just don't fricking like orange, just go", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "change it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And personally, I think that was a lot of wasted effort and time on just that color set, right? Because there's so many other more important things like what's the product doing for people? How are they getting through it? How's it creating value for the company? How are you going to unramp people into the new product? How can design move them through important flows and all this stuff? There's all this much meatier, more important stuff that actually brings the product to life than whether it's orange or blue.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Does it matter? I know I've asked this before, and sorry, Jason, I'm interrupting. But once again, does it matter if it looks good?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, well, I think there are examples of products that don't look good that are successful. And I think there are examples of products that look very, very good that are successful. People associate themselves with things that they want to kind of represent their personality. And the vast majority of people want to believe they look good, right? And so they want to associate themselves with things that look good. Now, many people have different kind of aesthetics of what is good and what's not. And when you're young, you know, think MySpace, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "The way you think of what looks good is a lot more, I guess, chaotic, if you will. And over time, you sort of hone in on what you actually associate with looking good. But, you know, fundamentally, I think we, as human beings, are sort of attracted to things of beauty. So there's no harm in trying to align with that natural attraction that's in human beings.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Sorry, Jason, I interrupted.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "No, that's fine.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's fine. One of the elements that I was thinking if, you know, if I, like I said, this article, that theoretical article that I may and probably will never write, is the idea of spacing. And I started reading up on something that's called a grid system, which I had never heard of before, but I keep seeing popping up more recently. Could you maybe describe, I mean, what exactly is a grid system, and how does that play into sort of organizing a web page or web design?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So the grid system... Or I guess even just a user interface design at all.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Sure. So the grid system basically gives you a structure around which to do the visual organization stuff that I was talking about. Right. So one of the... And this all boils down to Gestalt again, and how we perceive things visually. Principles like alignment, proximity, similarity, continuance, spacing, all that stuff flows in. And what you do with the grid system is you basically have an underlying structure that you can lay things against and play into some of those principles, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So you can have things in close proximity there, you can have continuance, because the grid system lets you go from something that's a 50 by 50 to 100 by 100 to a 200 by 200, and that helps you play with prioritization. At the very least, if you're super basic, don't know anything about any of this stuff, a grid system will at least allow you to align things.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Is it an invisible grid system?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, you usually don't see it. Sometimes one or two of the lines you make transparent through background colors or through lines or things like that, but the bulk of it is behind the scenes.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So think of it like guides, like you might see guides in Microsoft Word or something like that. It's a kind of guides grid system that's invisible when it's on the finished product, but while you're designing, you've got it to line your little elements up.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right. And one of the things that makes stuff really hard to parse visually is no alignment, right? Or everything is just sort of whacked around. This thing's center aligned, the thing below it's left aligned, and you've got like five other columns. It's just very hard to parse that and scan it in the way that we make sense of information visually.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Is balance important? For example, if you put a big square box on the top right of the page, should you then essentially have a big square box on the bottom left of the page?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, not if that big square box on the right thing is the number one thing to do on that page and it represents your like big call to action, it makes you tons of money, right? I wouldn't balance it. I would try and put the focus on that one, that one prioritized element. You can see this on like, you know, e-commerce product pages, right? The call to action buy button is this huge high contrast thing generally situated in the kind of middle-ish slash center of the page. And that's, you know, to draw your eye there and have that be the thing you look at.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And ideally it's paired next to the product image because images usually attract our attention. We spend time looking at them. And if you can make that association, here's the image, here's the buy button. That's where the eye goes quite frequently.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Interesting. Interesting. So that's like an interesting trick that I'd never heard of, put an action near an image.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It depends on the type of image. It's got to be an information rich image. If it's an image that's just like stock photography or seems irrelevant to the content, the task people will just tune it out and ignore it. And having a call to action associated next to that kind of image can actually make that call to action blend into that image and get ignored too.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "There's all sorts of things that we do when we parse information. Another one that many people get into that's a common mistake is try and make calls to action very, very different, like too different. And what happens is people generally perceive that as an ad because it doesn't look like anything like the rest of the UI. This is where the subtlety of a designer actually comes into play really strongly. And it's sometimes hard for people who don't have just sort of a background on visual understanding is how much contrast do you lay in there?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But if you think of Amazon.com, basically they have their image on the far left hand side of the page and their call to action on the far right hand side of the page. So I guess it's not a steadfast rule, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You know, as I said at the beginning, the quintessential design answer to everything is it depends because it's all about the context of what's around it, right? And it's all about the context of what else you have on the page. If one site has a really, really strong brand color, like a big red brand color, and that's represented in their banner or their logo or whatever, then they can't necessarily use the same amount of contrast or the same kind of contrast than a site that has a really muted and sort of faded palette for their company brand and logo.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And they're playing with a different overall list of things.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You know, so the idea of like giving some tips or some structure to how to think about this stuff is, it seems like it's a little difficult because the way you describe it is that design is an art. And I don't mean art, just mean like as in artistic, I mean an art as in, it's not scientific. It's not like a bunch of series of rules. It really is contextual and it seems like, so what I'm wondering is, is visual design something that few people are ever really going to be good at, no matter how many classes they take. It's like, you know, like painting, like an art, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I mean, most people just are not ever going to be good artists, no matter how many art classes they take.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But like, I mean, just like coding, right? And not everybody's going to be a great developer no matter how much they study computer science or how much code they write. And I think all of these things are both an art and a science and I would take development on the same plane. Right? I mean, you can have all of the scientific rigor around how you're writing your algorithms, how you're optimizing your markup, but every once in a while you need a creative solution,", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And you need to have sort of your personal take on how this thing's going to be architected in order for it to work.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, I guess one thing you notice about really great coders is their taste, you know, how they organize their code, how they attack the problem, how they think about it. And I imagine that's the same thing with design. You know, they can know all the, you can know all the rules, but it's really how your brain puts it all together. And it just shows, you know, sort of really good taste versus sort of mediocre taste.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You learn all the rules so you can break them. Right? You learn the essence of art and music and all that. People that play jazz spend a ton of time learning scales so that when they start playing, they can forget about the scales and, you know, kind of do what fits with the music at the time.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But one thing I've noticed about designers and working with professional designers is they all seem to have a style and I can't quite work out if that's a good thing or a", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "bad thing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think it's a good thing. I think, um, we're attracted to things with personality and, you know, take a look at anything that you sort of consider a masterpiece in the world, right? Whether it's an architecture or art or writing or literally, they all have a point of view. They all have a perspective that they bring to the world. And that perspective is what makes them unique. Whereas if you think about all the stuff that's really bland and boring in the world, like say corporate websites, in most cases, it's a brochure aware website. There is no personality.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "There is no point of view. It's 50 people all chiming in with their opinion and you can, you can see it, right? It kind of comes through. So having that perspective and that point of view and a design that many times can come from a designer, it doesn't have to, um, it can come from all sorts of different sources, but having a point of view and a perspective and a personality is really, really powerful and important.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So is that a good rule of thumb when hiring a designer to, to look through their work and make sure that you like their general concept, their viewpoint?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I, um, I think there's two things you should look for when you hire a designer. One is, can they get the big picture behind what you're doing? Do they understand the purpose of what you're doing? Why you're doing it for who, what are the factors that are involved in making it successful, right? The big picture.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Do they grok the big picture?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And then secondarily, do they have a strong attention to detail, meaning do they, are they really thinking about all the different choices they're making, why they're making them, the considerations they go through, what the impact of those choices is, all the little detailed nuance stuff.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Because if you know the big picture and you know a little details and everything in the middle sort of works itself out, uh, too many designers, I think, or people who call themselves designers are focused on the middle part and don't have the big picture and don't spend the time and the rigor that they need on the details. And as a result, they're in the middle and that's sort of the middle Ocraty zone. Um, that's how I would look and try and hire designers. Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I have always, I've noticed that detail is kind of very important to, to make you think that something has really high quality. It has, it kind of has a little fine details that you wouldn't necessarily notice unless you went looking for them. But overall, all the fine details add up to just very high quality.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. There's a great Charles Eames quote, which is basically, uh, the details are the design,", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "He's, he's, I think he's, he, he said something like the details don't make the design. The details are the design. That's how, that's all the choices you make is what leads to the final product. And the more meticulous and focused you are in every single one of the details, the more likely you're going to have something that's coherent and structured and aligns to that", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "big picture. What are some of the designs on the web that you think are the most cutting edge? You know, because it seems like we go through these phases where, um, the, the, what would the style shifts, you know, and I remember when like, um, you know, the 37 signals base camp thing came in and everyone was sort of copying them for a while. And I'm wondering if you're sensing, you know, a direction or a style that's starting to take hold now.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. I think what we're doing is we're maturing the market in general, right? So early on in the web, a lot of people just came on board and did all sorts of things, but now you've got a much bigger audience, right? We're projected to hit 2 billion worldwide by the end of 2010. And as you mature the market and as you get to, um, situations where it's not just about the functionality anymore, it's about the overall experience.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You're going to see products that are focused on more or on managing simplicity for you, making things easier to grok, just the sheer competition and the number of things there drives the market to reduction. So hopefully there's going to be a bit more reductionism and you know, I don't mean that like visually, I just mean that in the amount of overhead you need to go and start using a site or a product as things mature and people understand what the technology does and how it does it. Then it's really focused on that experience more.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Are there any, any sites out there now? And I mean more in the terms of applications as opposed to just pure informational sites that you think are really cutting edge right now or setting a new, uh, sort of a new style", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "that you think are awesome?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, it depends on what you define cutting edge, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "What do you think's awesome?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "What do I think is I, so I'll be frank with you guys, I, I really hate that question.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That was just his question.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Everybody asks that question and you know, if you, if, if you, I mean there's lots of things that are really awesome for lots of different reasons, right? And just simply saying, oh, I like that in many cases is really just selling it short what they're doing and why they're doing, uh, why that aspect of things that they're doing is great. Like I'll give you guys just a couple of really small nuanced examples of things I like.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So there's a, I've lately been doing a lot of to do tracking, there's this little site called to do we do list or we do list, um, and it's super bland, doesn't do a lot of things, but it's all around creating to dues and they've used a ton of inline actions and really small interactions that you can add things and stick things in really light and quick. And I really like that experience for just the immediacy and ability for me to stay in a single page and get a lot of stuff done very quickly and easily. So I like it for its interaction design of to do lists.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Okay.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And that's, that's one example, right? You know, all, a lot of other things around that product, maybe they're not the greatest, maybe, um, you know, they have other issues, but that specific aspect of it is actually", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "pretty useful for me. I was wondering if we could ask you about, um, I guess I'd like to ask you about a couple of your presentations that you've given recently. Um, one is you called signup forms must die. Um, and yeah, I'd like to maybe just give us a quick version of that because I think that's a really interesting problem because as web applications, you ultimately need to get a certain amount of information to, to be able to move forward. But yet you've got too much in there. People seem to get frustrated and not want to go, not even want to use your product.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So I'll be curious what your take in that is.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. So my central thesis around signup forms must die is, you know, somebody tells you about a website or you get a link, you go and check it out. And what's the first thing you have to do is go fill in a web form, right? Before you can actually use it, before you can actually see what it's doing for you. Maybe you can take like a tour or any of that kind of stuff. But you know, step one is, okay, give us your name, give us your email address, agree to our terms of service, agree to our privacy policy, you know, solve this CAPTCHA riddle.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I think that's just a really shitty first time experience for a new product. Instead, I think it's much better to try and give people a sense of what you can do for them and how with a few lightweight interactions that really explain the product that let you get in there and start using it and see some value immediately.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And then when you get that value, then jump in and you know, say, okay, if you want to continue or you want us to save this or you want to share what you just made or whatever, then we just need a couple of pieces of information so that we can create an account for you to save it. And at that point, you get what it does, you know if it's for you or not. And you either become a customer or you don't. And frankly, getting that sign up up front and then just finding out that person's not going to use your product once they figure out what it does is kind of worthless, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Is there, are you a little bit at risk of the kind of Amazon one click problem where Amazon kind of had this, they introduced one click and they patented one click, but people didn't really and don't really like it because they can't actually tell that something's happened. So quite a lot of time, if you go to a site that does require a sign up, if you didn't have a sign up, it's a bit of a strange experience to just feel like, you know, am I actually using this app? Like, is my work going to be saved? I mean, what?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, that's a, that's a design question, right? You've got to have the right design that answers those questions for people. Um, you know, I think you can make it awkward and weird that you don't know if you're using it or not, but you can also make it a very, um, sort of gradually engaging experience that makes it very clear what step you're in, what you're doing, how you can go to the next step and things like that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So do you think it would be a reasonable thing that if you had some sort of productivity app that they're going to use to create something, um, some, and you know, like, like you mentioned, like a to do list even or whatever that you just say, Hey, create lists, they go on, they start creating a list and then something comes up and a little pop up or some slide, something slides out or informs them and says, this hasn't been saved. And then at that point, if they hit save, then it asks for your email address and a password or something.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. A great example of this that I use in that talk actually is this site called Jeannie G E N I. And you know, there's a bunch of different family tree makers out there. The vast majority of them, their first step is sign in, sign up, you know, create an account. What Jeannie does right on the first page is, okay, start making a family tree. Are you male or female? Give us your name and start family tree. And then the next step you're adding your mother and father.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So you're invested, you're, you're invested by the time you even think about signing up.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. Within like two clicks, you've already made a family tree. It's like, wallah, you're successful. Oh. And by the way, that's the entire purpose of Jeannie to make family trees. So within, you know, a couple interactions, you've done what you came there to do, right? You've been successful. And in the meantime, you learned what the software is and what it does for you. And you didn't do it by filling in a form and agreeing to a whole bunch of shit up front.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I think that's, you know, that's a productivity application, making family trees. Sure. Uh, and you can apply that kind of thinking to a lot of different models, right? And most of the time people don't, they just don't think about the first time experience beyond, Oh, we need to sign up for them. Oh, and we need to, you know, really drive people to sign up and tell them why they should sign up. And that's like the extent of their thinking about the first time experience. Imagine, imagine if everything in the world worked like that. Imagine if you go into a restaurant, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And they're forcing you to sign up and it's just, it's just crazy.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Could it apply to Twitter and Facebook?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. And Twitter has actually been doing this. Uh, I've talked with a few of the folks at Twitter and they're, they're very on board with this idea of gradual engagement. In fact, I wrote an article recently about how they applied, uh, some of the gradual engagement principles by adding a step to their signup flow. And they increased conversion by like 25 to 40% in terms of, uh, engagement, increased engagement.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Have you seen a movie called man on a wire? Uh, sounds familiar, but it's about a guy who type wrote, walked across the twin towers. And uh, one of the things that they do in that is to, to get the, the, this big iron rope across those twin towers is they take a bow and arrow and they shoot across a little a ball of thread and then they pull that, that ball of thread and then that gets a bigger piece of rope and then that gets a bigger piece of rope and gradually they get to this big iron cable.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "This, this whole gradual, um, uh, involvement thing sounds a lot, sounds similar to that as a metaphor.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. You can use that in metaphor. And also is that where I stole actually a big piece of that from as a Will Wright, who's the guy who wrote, uh, the Sims and Spore and I saw him give a talk a long time ago where he said in my games, I focus on making people successful in the first five seconds of play. So, you know, in Spore, you're a little creature and within the first five seconds you eat something, you get a little bit bigger. I can do this. Oh, I'm great. You know, or in Mario, you start up and all of a sudden you get a gold coin right in front of you and you power up.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So right off the bat, they make you successful and that teaches you how the game works. Because in Spore, for example, you're running around and eating a bunch of stuff at the beginning. So you grow.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And you're also a little bit vested, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You've already done something.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Oh, I got bigger. Yeah, exactly. So I just like that kind of thinking about engaging people. Right. I hate the kind of thinking of we need to create a record set in our database with some name value pairs for, you know, first name, last name, email address, all that crap. It's just, I don't know, it's treating people as a as a as a data set in a database rather than a human being.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Let's say you have a website that basically you have a paid product and really that your only real access to that is as a paid product. But would you then go with this? So you'd get to the front page and you could start using that product and you wouldn't. Would you mention that it's a paid product at that point?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, I think this is this is the model a lot of those companies are coming to is they all have sort of a freemium version. Right. And a lot of them allow you to start using it, figure out what you're doing, and then within the product, they message you to get into paid features. And the amount of companies that I see moving to that model, to me, indicates that it's actually a decent model.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So would you mention anything about paying when you hit the page in the first place? I guess what I'm trying to say is, is that sneaky not to mention the paying aspect the first time you hit the page?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I was talking to a guy from Smug Mug recently in Boston, and he showed me the before and after designs that they did for their service, which is a paid service. And the before view had all the stuff about all the different rates and everything and what it was going to be when they redesigned it. They totally simplified it. They got rid of all that upfront information about understanding what kind of account you have. And they just got you in and going. And he said, you know, the amount of value that they've extracted from that process has been like 200 percent. Wow. Interesting.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And it's all about, you know, just managing the. Let me get to put this into a real world perspective. You go and meet somebody in the street. Right. And you say, hey, I'm going to meet somebody in the street. And you say, hey, my name's Luke. First name, last name, email address. Agree to my terms of service. Where do you live? How do I contact you? You know, it's just totally unnatural. Right. Instead, there's an actual conversation there that happens. And there's this gradual process by which you get to know that person.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You decide if you want to talk to them ever again or not.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That would be a great viral video of saying that if people were web forms or web apps, you know, enjoying all the mistakes as just real people, this is how", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "they behave. Actually, that is a methodology that you can, once again, circle back to the beginning. We're talking about what can some developers do? There's actually a really great exercise that I've seen a number of folks do where you just put like a browser Chrome around one person and they respond the way the interface responds to a human being. They try to have a conversation. So I saw somebody do this recently around like an event planning forum and one person was acting out the role of the forum. The other person was acting out the role of a human being.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And so a human being comes up to the forum and says, hey, you know, I'm thinking of maybe having an event at your location and the farmer's first name. And the guy says, oh, you know, well, do you guys actually what kind of size groups can I have here? First name. OK, I guess I'll give you my first name. When can I find out how what kind of group I had here? Last name. And you just start laughing. Right. But really quickly, you realize how those interactions work. And it's sad, but it's true.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That's great. Interesting.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's great. Yeah, it's pretty good.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, so another another presentation that I found interesting of yours and I haven't had a chance to watch the video, but I was looking at the slides and it looks it's very timely for me because I actually have a couple of mobile projects that I'm going to be starting.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And the title of the presentation was Mobile First, as in the fact that rather than people design or rather than designers, developers thinking the website first and then the the the mobile app as sort of like a retrofitting that onto or trying to take the web experience and put it on the mobile app, they're thinking the mobile first as experience. And I mean, you know, I'd love to hear your your sort of talk on that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, I think I think you nailed the crux of the argument, which is traditionally the desktop version is done first and the mobile support. But there's a lot of reasons why the inverse actually makes more sense. And the kind of three that I call out in the presentation I've been talking about a lot, I've been giving this talk across a number of different places. The first one is, hey, mobile is just really exploding right now and taking advantage of that opportunity.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think the mobile Web, according to Morgan Stanley's Internet research, is growing eight times faster than the original Web group, which is just nuts. And every study after study, you see that those those those numbers are not only coming true, they're actually moving faster. So there's a huge opportunity, huge growth to mobile has these natural constraints. The screen size are small. The connections are crappy.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "People are using a single thumb, which very much forces you to prioritize, constrain and figure out what the core value you're giving people is at each point in the process of your application. When you got ten, twenty four by seven, sixty eight, you can fit a lot of shit on that page. I'm sorry. Should I be swearing? Maybe I shouldn't be swearing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "No, it's fine. As long as you're swearing at Justin, swear at him.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "OK, I think she likes that word. Just don't go any deeper.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "OK, I won't go any deeper. What can you say? Crap. At ten, twenty four by seven, sixty eight, you can fill a lot of crap in there. Most of what people put in there is crap. When you go down to like a 320 by 480 or standard ish mobile screen, you got to throw away 80 percent of the stuff you had on the screen, which means you need to have a real clear understanding of what needs to be on that screen and why. And that requires focus that requires prioritization, which is all just good for design in general.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Go on. I'm just going to give you the third part of why mobile first. The third part of mobile first is having a device that's in your pocket and it has all the sensors and capabilities that these devices have actually introduces a lot of opportunities for innovation. You know, people's exact location down to 10 meters, right? They have embedded cameras so you can do video. They have embedded audio controls. They have touch based controls. They have digital compasses that know the orientation of the user. They have accelerometers. You can tell how the device is oriented.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Having all those capabilities in front of you lets you just really start rethinking what your service can do and how you can present the same information to people using those capabilities, which is great for thinking of new ideas and new experiences.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right. One thing that I like about building mobile apps, I feel like because it limits what you can do, it's it's it's makes it easier not to screw up as much as long as you know what the interaction is supposed to be. It seems like when you have an entire Web page, it's like, OK, I want to do this. But now what do I do with all this extra space? And, you know, just sort of like, OK, well, this is clearly a table view. Right. And I click on something and then something else happens. It just seems from a non-artist perspective, it's just a little less daunting.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, it's it's it's a lot simpler, you know, but at the same time, it's harder. Right. I mean, it forces you to get to simplicity, but it also really focuses you on nailing the tasks because the mobile environment is a lot more of a task focused environment than it is a browse or navigate kind of environment. In fact, you don't want to browse around and navigate too much on mobile devices because you've got low connectivity, you don't have a lot of time, you're trying to get stuff done.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And so you have to have that rigor of making sure that process of getting things done on mobile accounts for all those constraints.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But does that mean. OK, but so now let's let's have a look at the inverse equation. A lot of apps were created for the iPhone and then along comes the iPad. Now, people had a lot more screen real estate, so they had to then rethink and make use of that new screen real estate. So how does your theory work regarding that?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, perhaps non-ironically, one of the first guidelines in the iPad development guideline is just because you got more screen real estate, don't get rid of all the simplicity that you had in your iPhone app and don't, you know, don't start adding features and all this other stuff just to craft it up. I think what you are then able to do is introduce stuff that makes those interactions you had in the iPhone more contextually relevant or more engaging or more active. Right. The iPad in general, this you have this whole conversation about like the context of different devices.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So I think that's a big topic right now that a lot of people are wrestling with. But the iPad is a leanback device. It's like a casual ish, more content consumption driven experience than say something like the iPhone. So it's study after study. What you see is people use the iPad on the couch or they use it before they go to bed at night, which I actually did last night to read and they use it to read things. They use it to browse. So the kind of design and the kind of interaction you have for those contexts is pretty different than the kind of context you have.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Hey, I got my iPhone in my pocket and I'm trying to get to, you know, a restaurant right now. Very different use case than I'm thinking of having a trip to Paris. Let me play with the maps and explore it like you might do on an iPad in a different context, a different UI. And that's a much bigger issue than just adding stuff when you move to that device.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right. Right. You have one presentation. Let me get the name of it here. That was sort of a combination of the previous two that we just described, which is called Moving Beyond Input, Moving Beyond Forms, an overview of how Web applications can collect input through both mobile devices and desktop software, et cetera. You know, this seems like it brings some of these concepts together. If you wouldn't mind talking just a little bit about that one as well.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. So that one is focused really on we need to start thinking about ways that people can interact with our services, both online and offline. Let me back up a second. Contribution is just a hugely important thing for software, especially social software, which is kind of what all software is going to become over time, I think, because it's fundamentally boils down to people. Right. And people use things. And so in that kind of environment, contribution is really important.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And once again, you know, the default thinking around contribution and software has been so far input elements and forms and things like that. Yet we have all these new capabilities coming to us. We have all these opportunities to create different kinds of startup experiences, not just sign up forms. And so, you know, let's kind of go a little bit above the default thinking and kind of approach the problem from a different way. It's essentially the last part, the part three of the mobile first talk that we talked about.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And the sign up form was died, kind of combined into one, as you suggested.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You're working on a stealth startup. And I know that it's, I guess, given the fact that you listed as stealth, does that mean there's nothing you can say about it?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Not yet. I can say we're chugging along to a little bit of an alpha software release and we've got some users in the system trying to break it for us.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, I mean, is it web software or is it desktops? I mean, is it mobile? Is it, you know, it's yeah, it's everywhere.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You know, that's sort of what the web is these days. We have yet to make a TV version, but we've been focused on all the other versions.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Interesting. Right. So when can we expect to see something from hopefully in the next month", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "or so, we'll be popping that out.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "How long have you been working on the software?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "On software period or on this?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, just say, yeah, yeah, I guess the startup thing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. So I left Yahoo at the beginning of April and I think we started kind of headstrong on this towards the beginning of June. So about four or five months ish from, you know, company formation, idea generation, picking an idea, starting to build it, design, test.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Are you the founder or co-founder or?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, I'm a co-founder. I have two partners, one on the technical side and one on the business side.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I'm sorry, I missed the part. When is when are you going to release sort of some public data?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Hopefully in the next month or so. You know, we'll release it when it's ready.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Does it have a name? Does it have a public name?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "We have a working name right now, so I'm hesitant to put it out there just yet.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But OK, that's fine. It's called Google. Yeah, that's right. Um, before that, I saw in your bio that you were an entrepreneur residence at Benchmark Capital. I'd be really curious. Oh, you still are.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "They're still there.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Oh, so they're so Benchmark is incubating this startup.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Is that the entrepreneur residence role is kind of designed to get people into their next thing, especially in the startup space. Right. So some people that take an EIR role go and join an existing startup in a company's portfolio. But a lot of them mostly go on to start startups. Right. So that's kind of the process I'm going through right now.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "OK, so when you do start working on a startup, then you're still considered an entrepreneur residence. I sort of thought that when you were an entrepreneur residence, you were sort of in between gigs, so to speak, that you were participating in on evaluating, you know, deals that were coming in. Is that true?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yes, that is all true. They do it in kind of six month increments. OK, so, you know, I mean, I got a six month engagement there and during part of it, I was a lot more focused on what you're talking about. And during the latter half, I've been a lot more focused on actually building, building a", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "product. So how does that work before you start working on your actual startup, your startup? Well, first, I'd like to ask, how did how do you even become an entrepreneur resident? That seems like a pretty cool gig if you can get it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. As many things happen in Silicon Valley, it's through the strength of kind of our network. So my partner in the current startup, Semplar, he was an EIR who worked with one of the partners at Benchmark Capital previously. So through that relationship is kind of how we made that happen.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Right. And do you when you're doing that before you're working on your startup, I mean, are you getting paid a real salary or are you just kind of there's a kind of like thing working like a graduate stipend kind of thing?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, we've we've been bootstrapped up until now. So the three of us have not been taking any salary as a startup.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Oh, so you're an entrepreneur resident. You're not even getting paid, really.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Oh, no. That depends on per firm. Right. OK. It really matters on the VC firm whether or not they're paying you. Many of them will give you, you know, space to work and support to the network and rely on you. Some of them have paid engagements. Other ones don't. Right. It's part of the actual startup we're doing. We are using founder money right now and not taking a salary.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So did you when the relationship, the entrepreneur residence situation started for you, was it the conversation that you have an idea or you and a couple of your co-founders or potential co-founders have an idea and you're going to work it out over the next few months? Or do they just say, hey, come jump in with us. We'll see what happens. I mean, how did that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "More of the latter than the former. Right. You know, we started our company started out as a team first, a market second and idea third. So that's sort of the process we've been going through.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That's an interesting that's an interesting way to do it. So I guess you had a lot of whiteboard brainstorming sessions about, OK, what are we", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "going to make? We had a long list of things that we wanted to do. Right. You know, at first our exploration was what space do we think actually makes sense for us given the type of opportunity we want to go after. So there's a lot of debate and conversation around that. And once we sort of nailed the space and everybody felt really good about the opportunity there, then we went through a lot, a large number of iterations on actual ideas. And it took us a while to settle in on the concept we're going for right now.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And, you know, it's always as with all things startup, everything is always in flux.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "How did you test your market assumptions?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, we're testing them right now. OK, cool. You don't have to test the market assumptions. You can just basically say, hey, this market has this and this opportunity. Here's this and this space to play. Right. That's this relatively easy to model at a high level. What you need to do is really say is do we have a viable thing to address that market or not? And today, I think really that's tested by putting people into a product and seeing what they do and how they react.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Is there somewhere that doesn't give anything away where listeners of this show could basically send an email to you saying, hey, when you've got something, I'm interested in knowing what the hell it is.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, they can go to BagCheck.com and enter their email address on there and we'll ping them over sometime. It might take a bit, but we'll ping them.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You said BagCheck as in?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, as in B-A-G-C-H-E-C-K.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "OK, it's important that people know how to spell because my product that I've been working on, our bootstrapping Appignite, everybody at like as an ignite an application, everyone thinks it thinks we're saying Epic Knight.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, we actually have it. We actually have a spellable word.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "In fact, someone actually thought we someone actually thought I don't know if they said this jokingly or not. They thought we were saying a pig at night. So, yeah, the choice of naming.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. So I'm just going to bag B-A-G-C-H-E-C-K.com and I'm entering in my email", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "address right now. OK, there you go. So, Justin, do you have any more questions?", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think I think that's that's been a really informative show. In actual fact, I'm going to all of my developer friends, I'm going to forward them to this because this to me has been the 101. If you're if you're like a bootstrapper and a solo developer, this show will what we've discussed so far.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Even if you're not a solo developer, I mean, if you're part of a small startup or even you're working on an internal team and you're trying to make your product better, I mean, everything that he's that Luke is saying and all the things that he's trying to teach you through his presentations apply to any size company. So, yeah. And also, I wouldn't say just in general, I don't think our market is just bootstrappers, our listeners. I think we got a lot of people who aren't bootstrappers.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So, OK, I don't I think there are a lot of people I can tell by the people who list by the comments we get that there's a range of people who do kind of things I described and probably a lot of other things.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So I've been told you've told me.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "OK. The other thing I'd say is if you go to Luke's site, which is Luke W dot com, he has a lot of writings that are, you know, like, I guess, PDFs or pages or, you know, just HTML. But if you go to his presentation section, there are PDFs and videos that he's given. And they look great. So all these things that we talk about, mobile first, sign up forms must die. And there's about like, I don't know, like 20 or 30 of these things look like they're very much worth sitting, take some time and watching.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "If you want to burn a weekend or two on PowerPoint, there you go.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 1"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Yeah. Well, I'll probably watch the video, but I'm telling you, you know, because, you know, as someone who's creating a, you know, a web application and mobile apps, I'm, you know, I I'm very confident my ability to create and write code. And I'm fairly confident my ability to create a decent user experience. But the design aspect and honing the user experience of all these things is I, you know, I definitely could use some work. So I think what you're teaching here is extremely valuable.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So everybody, if you're interested and you think you need to work on this stuff or think, you know, go to Luke W dot com and check it out.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Luke, it's been absolutely fantastic to have you on the show. Thank you very much. Thank you guys for having me.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 3"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's been great. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Really great video. All right. That's a wrap. We're out.", "start": 0, "speaker": "Person 2"}]}, {"id": "24c5688d-3bb8-4b8b-a0cd-1851f0238c7b", "url": "https://static.lukew.com/video/ObviousAlwaysWins_LukeWroblewski_Denver2017.mp4", "date": 1513036800000, "type": 2, "title": "Obvious Always Wins", "topics": ["iPhone design", "Apple Maps redesign", "Android app", "behavioral research", "Apple music redesign"], "endTime": 1234.695, "nameMap": {"SPEAKER_00": "Luke Wroblewski"}, "summary": "Luke Wroblewski discusses the importance of design in the tech industry, using the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit and Google apps as examples. He emphasizes the iterative process of design, learning from past mistakes, and understanding user behavior through qualitative and quantitative data. Wroblewski also highlights the importance of having a point of view and direction in design, while being cautious of blindly copying competitors or relying solely on data-driven decisions.", "filename": "ObviousAlwaysWins_LukeWroblewski_Denver2017.mp4", "startTime": 943.685, "coverImage": "https://qrmsyiqritqdkspkjoqy.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/lukew-media/batch-2-video-image/ObviousAlwaysWins_LukeWroblewski_Denver2017.jpg", "transcript": [{"end": 9.86, "text": "Yeah, so depressing how few mosaic people are left.", "start": 5.718, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 13.762, "text": "It's kind of like when you get old, all your friends start to die off.", "start": 9.86, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 18.545, "text": "It's like the news gets more and more depressing.", "start": 13.762, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 24.248, "text": "Prince, David Bowie, mosaic users.", "start": 18.545, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 25.088, "text": "Yeah.", "start": 24.248, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 29.35, "text": "So anyway, since it's a little bit before lunch, you may be starting to get a bit tired.", "start": 25.088, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 31.752, "text": "I have a way of awakening you, I hope.", "start": 29.35, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 32.572, "text": "Let's see if it works.", "start": 31.752, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 38.299, "text": "Okay, should we make that louder?", "start": 36.798, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 43.383, "text": "Okay, let's try that a little bit louder, because there's a part after that that's even better.", "start": 38.299, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 46.826, "text": "All right, is it cranked?", "start": 43.383, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 51.169, "text": "All right, Denver.", "start": 46.826, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 61.437, "text": "Here it comes.", "start": 51.169, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 63.499, "text": "And thank you very much.", "start": 61.437, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 70.601, "text": "So, a couple years ago, We had a lawsuit in the tech industry.", "start": 63.499, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 75.162, "text": "It was actually the biggest patent lawsuit in the technology industry to date.", "start": 70.601, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 79.563, "text": "There was $2 billion under contention.", "start": 75.162, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 81.664, "text": "And it made all the press that you'd expect.", "start": 79.563, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 83.744, "text": "People were talking about it around the world.", "start": 81.664, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 90.406, "text": "Because what happened was it was Apple suing Samsung over the design of the iPhone.", "start": 83.744, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 94.574, "text": "All right, and you all are probably familiar with the iPhone.", "start": 91.592, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 97.875, "text": "It's the one on the right or left.", "start": 94.574, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 100.357, "text": "I think it's the one on the left.", "start": 97.875, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 104.679, "text": "And what happened was Apple said, hey, Samsung, you're copying.", "start": 100.357, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 106.08, "text": "You're infringing on our patents.", "start": 104.679, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 113.444, "text": "I think they had like three utility patents, four design patents or something like that for this device.", "start": 106.08, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 126.206, "text": "But there was one patent in particular that formed the basis of this lawsuit for why Apple took a $2 billion effort against Samsung.", "start": 113.444, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 129.208, "text": "And it was something that literally had a picture that just looked like this.", "start": 126.206, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 131.47, "text": "It was just this little rectangle.", "start": 129.208, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 134.772, "text": "And as design patents are, they're basically just pictures.", "start": 131.47, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 135.833, "text": "There's very few words.", "start": 134.772, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 138.755, "text": "And Apple's design patent had very, very few words.", "start": 135.833, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 142.438, "text": "And I have to read from my screen so I get the lawyer speak correct.", "start": 138.755, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 151.865, "text": "It said, this patent covers this smartphone and its ornamental design substantially as shown and described.", "start": 142.438, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 155.269, "text": "That's all it said.", "start": 153.267, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 158.391, "text": "And what you saw was just kind of this black rectangle.", "start": 155.269, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 163.855, "text": "And it was this design that Samsung called in a whole bunch of expert witnesses.", "start": 158.391, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 166.297, "text": "They sort of paraded a whole bunch of them through.", "start": 163.855, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 170.58, "text": "And what they argued was, you can't protect this.", "start": 166.297, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 176.445, "text": "This is not only something that we're not going to pay any money for, but this patent shouldn't be valid.", "start": 170.58, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 177.526, "text": "And why did they say that?", "start": 176.445, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 180.988, "text": "They said, because it's so obvious.", "start": 177.526, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 182.049, "text": "It's such an obvious design.", "start": 180.988, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 183.11, "text": "It's just a rectangle.", "start": 182.049, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 187.314, "text": "Anybody could have gotten there eventually.", "start": 184.512, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 196.739, "text": "How can you protect something that is so inevitable, so obvious, such a kind of design that anyone can get to?", "start": 187.314, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 208.366, "text": "But if we go back now about 10 years and we look at the introduction of this obvious product, were things really as obvious back then as they claimed about what this would become?", "start": 196.739, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 217.477, "text": "Because when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, for those of you that remember, he basically said it was three different things.", "start": 209.271, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 230.087, "text": "So of the three things that came to create this device, one was the iPod, the other one was the phone, and the third one was the internet communicator.", "start": 217.477, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 230.727, "text": "We all laugh.", "start": 230.087, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 234.31, "text": "Every time I say that now, people laugh.", "start": 230.727, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 238.213, "text": "But that's literally what they called it, the internet communicator.", "start": 234.31, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 248.137, "text": "And it was the combination of these three things together that was supposed to create this next generation device that was going to leapfrog the devices that were out there.", "start": 239.413, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 251.198, "text": "Because if you remember, there actually were smartphones at the time of this.", "start": 248.137, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 258.581, "text": "They just looked like BlackBerrys, Motorola Q thing, those sorts of devices.", "start": 251.198, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 261.983, "text": "So there was like 60 million of those sold a year at the time.", "start": 258.581, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 267.165, "text": "But the modern mobile smartphone started off as a combination of these three things.", "start": 261.983, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 269.152, "text": "So let's look at it.", "start": 267.611, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 276.599, "text": "iPod was this original concept that Apple had a lot of success with of storing a thousand songs in your pocket.", "start": 269.152, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 283.926, "text": "You put all these songs on this little iPod, you carry them around with you, and you basically download your music and listen to it anywhere.", "start": 276.599, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 285.607, "text": "And it had a pretty good run.", "start": 283.926, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 291.754, "text": "So if we look at what the growth rates of song download on iTunes looked like.", "start": 285.607, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 295.436, "text": "Back in 2006, when this device came out, they were growing at something like 60%.", "start": 291.754, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 301.418, "text": "Then they grew at 40%, and now we have hit negative growth.", "start": 295.436, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 311.723, "text": "So the 1,000 songs in your pocket really didn't pan out to be as transformational as maybe people at the time thought.", "start": 301.418, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 317.259, "text": "Very compelling at the time, but has quite clearly petered off since then.", "start": 311.723, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 319.54, "text": "So what about the phone part?", "start": 317.259, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 325.422, "text": "Maybe the phone was the special sauce that merited this $2 billion lawsuit.", "start": 319.54, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 332.144, "text": "And again, if you look at the phone over the years, clearly a lot of these devices have made their way into our pockets.", "start": 325.422, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 341.407, "text": "But if you look at the amount of voice data that's happening, it's pretty much just stayed flat.", "start": 332.144, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 345.044, "text": "Despite more and more of these devices entering the market, all the time.", "start": 341.407, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 351.428, "text": "The amount that we spend talking on them via phones is not really changing.", "start": 345.044, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 352.468, "text": "In fact, it's interesting.", "start": 351.428, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 360.832, "text": "If you go and ask people, how many times do you actually make a voice call on your smartphone per week?", "start": 352.468, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 362.393, "text": "This is actually per week.", "start": 360.832, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 369.657, "text": "And about five years ago or so, almost everybody was taking a voice call at least once per week.", "start": 362.393, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 373.759, "text": "Now, 30% of people don't even take a call once a week.", "start": 369.657, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 375.888, "text": "I'm one of those people, by the way.", "start": 374.467, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 381.731, "text": "If my phone rings, what is this?", "start": 375.888, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 384.653, "text": "Kind of freaks me out.", "start": 381.731, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 391.536, "text": "So not only does data show it from a quantitative perspective, but also when you talk to people, you find that the same thing is true.", "start": 384.653, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 397.72, "text": "So the phone didn't really seem to be the thing that merited this $2 billion lawsuit.", "start": 391.536, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 409.247, "text": "So what happens if we then look at the internet communicator And the funny thing about the internet communicator, it was the thing that got the least amount of time during that original keynote.", "start": 397.72, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 412.289, "text": "It was a really brief section where they talked about this thing.", "start": 409.247, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 422.333, "text": "But if you go back to my voice versus data chart, and now instead of only showing voice information, I show the actual data.", "start": 412.289, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 423.954, "text": "Here we go.", "start": 422.333, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 429.057, "text": "You can see that actually turned out to be a very, very big thing.", "start": 423.954, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 431.838, "text": "So the big win out of this was the internet communicator piece.", "start": 429.057, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 444.61, "text": "And having this personal computer in our pockets connected to the internet has given birth to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of ideas, not the least of which is streaming music.", "start": 432.787, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 449.912, "text": "So it's not that Apple was necessarily wrong that we like to have music in our pockets.", "start": 444.61, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 461.415, "text": "It's just that iPod's structure of downloading songs actually has, over time, given way to more of an internet communicator-based means of listening to music through streaming.", "start": 449.912, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 468.955, "text": "And if you compare where people are making money, you can see music streaming has surpassed music downloads.", "start": 461.91, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 475.299, "text": "And in fact, music streaming is now actually some substantial portion of overall music revenue.", "start": 468.955, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 484.525, "text": "I think within the year, it's going to cross the 50% mark and become the dominant way by which people make money off of music.", "start": 475.299, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 488.208, "text": "So it's not that the songs were wrong.", "start": 484.525, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 490.469, "text": "It's just that they were all about the internet communicator.", "start": 488.208, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 491.29, "text": "And so when I look at this.", "start": 490.469, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 495.649, "text": "And I kind of come back to that original introduction.", "start": 492.144, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 499.674, "text": "I see these three things, and I say to myself, you know what?", "start": 495.649, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 501.056, "text": "One out of three ain't too bad.", "start": 499.674, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 507.075, "text": "But it's also an interesting story in terms of evolution and iteration.", "start": 502.873, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 512.978, "text": "We tend to put a lot of credit in the original introduction of things and getting it all right at the same time.", "start": 507.075, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 520.522, "text": "And even the most popular product in terms of scale, the smartphone, really took a while to find its course.", "start": 512.978, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 523.104, "text": "It wasn't immediately clear what that thing was good for.", "start": 520.522, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 529.507, "text": "A similar story is going on with smartwatches and a lot of other technology that we have in our lives.", "start": 523.104, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 532.709, "text": "There's a period where you kind of have to keep with it and figure out what it's good for.", "start": 529.507, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 538.264, "text": "So anyway, not a lot necessarily obvious at launch, right?", "start": 533.76, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 539.585, "text": "A lot had to be learned.", "start": 538.264, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 545.751, "text": "But to come back to this Apple versus Samsung thing, we heard Samsung's side of the argument.", "start": 539.585, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 547.253, "text": "Design is inevitable.", "start": 545.751, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 549.194, "text": "Anybody would have come up with it over time.", "start": 547.253, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 550.976, "text": "It's super obvious.", "start": 549.194, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 552.798, "text": "What did Apple argue?", "start": 550.976, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 553.959, "text": "What was their side of the coin?", "start": 552.798, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 556.505, "text": "They said, obvious?", "start": 555.084, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 557.165, "text": "Inevitable?", "start": 556.505, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 558.545, "text": "Are you freaking kidding me?", "start": 557.165, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 565.668, "text": "Do you have any idea how many prototypes we made over the five years that we locked people in the basement to create this thing?", "start": 558.545, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 567.649, "text": "They didn't see their families.", "start": 565.668, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 577.093, "text": "They couldn't go home on weekends because we're churning through so many prototypes and form factors to get to what you now call obvious.", "start": 567.649, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 582.295, "text": "There's a huge amount of variances, refinement, and painstaking work to get to this thing.", "start": 577.093, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 585.857, "text": "that you now see in front of you.", "start": 583.457, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 589.898, "text": "In fact, let's zoom in and look at a whole bunch of these things together.", "start": 585.857, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 598.66, "text": "They said no design detail was immune from this process, even very simple things, stuff that seemed like it would be pretty clear, like the hardware button.", "start": 589.898, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 603.001, "text": "They had 50 different refinements of that hardware button.", "start": 598.66, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 605.201, "text": "So span that out over five years.", "start": 603.001, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 608.942, "text": "That's like almost every month is another hardware button review.", "start": 605.201, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 610.342, "text": "There you go again.", "start": 608.942, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 615.057, "text": "Let's look at it one more time.", "start": 613.596, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 618.74, "text": "And it's like 10 hardware button refinements per year.", "start": 615.057, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 621.242, "text": "It's pretty brutal.", "start": 618.74, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 626.526, "text": "So their core thesis was what seems obvious now clearly was not.", "start": 621.242, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 631.69, "text": "Took many years of iteration, lots and lots of prototypes, lots and lots of hardware reviews.", "start": 626.526, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 636.133, "text": "But in the end, yeah, we did get to something that feels inevitable.", "start": 631.69, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 641.117, "text": "And kind of the statement that comes to mind is design is only obvious in retrospect.", "start": 636.133, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 651.786, "text": "It's after you've gone through all that hard work, and you've tried all these things that don't work, and eventually you've gotten to the thing that does work, that's where it feels clear.", "start": 641.86, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 653.447, "text": "That's where it feels focused.", "start": 651.786, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 657.55, "text": "That's where it feels, if I can use the word, right.", "start": 653.447, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 659.411, "text": "So that sounds good.", "start": 657.55, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 662.092, "text": "We all want to create these obvious designs.", "start": 659.411, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 672.598, "text": "If it's only obvious in retrospect that something is good or inevitable, how do you figure it out along the way?", "start": 663.752, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 677.741, "text": "How do you create these kinds of obvious designs?", "start": 672.598, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 686.746, "text": "Well, sticking with Apple for half a second, we can go back to looking at the release of Maps on iOS.", "start": 677.741, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 692.41, "text": "When iOS 10 came out, they did a big redesign of iOS Maps.", "start": 686.746, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 700.125, "text": "And one of the things that happened with the original Maps release, at least for Apple, they got a lot of slack for this.", "start": 693.66, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 701.166, "text": "Do you remember why?", "start": 700.125, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 704.949, "text": "It would kind of drive you into a lake when you're trying to go home.", "start": 701.166, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 708.752, "text": "It would label ancient cathedrals as Burger Kings.", "start": 704.949, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 710.333, "text": "Does anybody remember this?", "start": 708.752, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 713.996, "text": "Mapgate or whatever, they just throw gate at the end of everything now.", "start": 710.333, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 717.759, "text": "So this was a really maligned release for them.", "start": 713.996, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 722.362, "text": "Caused them a ton of headaches, created real problems, and actually, in some cases, endangered people.", "start": 717.759, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 733.269, "text": "One operating system ago, they redesigned maps completely, and they went from that old version that had stuck around for a couple years to a totally redesigned version.", "start": 724.146, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 740.112, "text": "And now, if you look at the conversations people have about Apple Maps, it's completely flipped.", "start": 733.269, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 742.913, "text": "In fact, these things are universally praised.", "start": 740.112, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 747.834, "text": "So just as a small example here, so much better, truly confusing before.", "start": 742.913, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 752.716, "text": "The new Apple Maps are a breath of fresh air in the Apple ecosystem.", "start": 747.834, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 760.401, "text": "I believe that's a nerd compliment, so I think it's good.", "start": 754.317, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 777.532, "text": "Now, if you care about obviousness and simplicity in design, you probably get curious when something that had a lot of problems before was characterized as confusing, hard to use, just overall bad, to now people love it and think it's great.", "start": 760.401, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 779.634, "text": "Well, what did they change?", "start": 777.532, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 781.375, "text": "How did they make that transition?", "start": 779.634, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 788.073, "text": "from difficult and confusing to fresh breath of air.", "start": 782.268, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 791.616, "text": "And so we can look at some of the changes that happened.", "start": 788.073, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 797.281, "text": "And we can take what people in the industry call a heuristic evaluation.", "start": 791.616, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 800.343, "text": "A heuristic evaluation is basically, I know something about design.", "start": 797.281, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 807.069, "text": "I'll look at it and tell you what I think based on my experience, things I've seen, what have you.", "start": 800.343, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 812.017, "text": "And so looking at it that way, we can kind of identify some of these reasons.", "start": 807.675, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 819.059, "text": "And it also helps in a heuristic evaluation if you have some core use cases, or you kind of can evaluate against what people are trying to do.", "start": 812.017, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 820.279, "text": "That's really useful.", "start": 819.059, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 827.982, "text": "So one key use case for Maps is going somewhere, getting directions.", "start": 820.279, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 832.624, "text": "So the way you would do that before in Maps, you would have to tap Search to start.", "start": 827.982, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 835.465, "text": "That's a little weird.", "start": 832.624, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 842.181, "text": "In the new version, however, there is a field that says, where do you want to go?", "start": 836.977, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 845.864, "text": "What do you think is more obvious?", "start": 842.181, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 850.928, "text": "Probably the thing that says, where do you want to go, perhaps.", "start": 845.864, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 852.47, "text": "Another example.", "start": 850.928, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 864.7, "text": "In the previous version of Maps, the way you actually start directions is you hit that blue text on screen there, the one that's a tiny bit more bluish and bolder.", "start": 852.47, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 865.08, "text": "See that one?", "start": 864.7, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 871.266, "text": "route, not to be confused with all the other blue text on there.", "start": 866.201, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 878.433, "text": "In the redesigned version, you have this giant thing that looks like a touchable element.", "start": 871.266, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 881.556, "text": "We in the industry call it a button.", "start": 878.433, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 886.841, "text": "You may have forgotten what those look like, but that's what they are.", "start": 881.556, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 890.824, "text": "And you can see it says directions, 30 minute drive.", "start": 886.841, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 895.101, "text": "There's a big kind of strong visual contrast, to use the language of design, right?", "start": 890.824, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 897.243, "text": "Visual contrast, affordance.", "start": 895.101, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 899.365, "text": "Affordance looks like something you can tap.", "start": 897.243, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 902.007, "text": "Strong visual contrast makes something pop up.", "start": 899.365, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 905.41, "text": "So you want a primary action that's really bold and noticeable.", "start": 902.007, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 909.654, "text": "And clearly, big difference between this before and after view, right?", "start": 905.41, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 919.946, "text": "So we can say maybe these primary actions, maybe these clear call to actions, all these things are adding up And in fact, net-net, there was a ton of design changes.", "start": 909.654, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 923.506, "text": "Many of them likely contributed to these positive feelings.", "start": 919.946, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 930.108, "text": "So if we look before, there was a separation between where you're going and how you're going to get there.", "start": 923.506, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 938.169, "text": "And in the new version, there's this really clear, to Charleston Road, from my location, 30 minutes, fastest route, go.", "start": 930.108, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 942.13, "text": "And you've got the drive, walk, transit options right there, as opposed to separated.", "start": 938.169, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 947.407, "text": "And if you show these to two people and you ask, which one's more obvious?", "start": 943.685, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 949.669, "text": "Guess which one they're going to pick.", "start": 947.407, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 950.83, "text": "They'll be, duh.", "start": 949.669, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 960.076, "text": "Well, if it's so duh, why did that design A, get made, B, live on for at least three or four years?", "start": 950.83, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 962.998, "text": "So it's not necessarily so obvious at the time how this looks.", "start": 960.076, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 965.179, "text": "But again, strong visual contrast, all these things.", "start": 962.998, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 967, "text": "So many things kind of came together.", "start": 965.179, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 970.883, "text": "But do we really know which ones were the important ones?", "start": 967, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 973.359, "text": "Was it the contrast?", "start": 972.018, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 975.101, "text": "Was it the button shape?", "start": 973.359, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 979.004, "text": "Was it the copy that we inserted in there?", "start": 975.101, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 980.245, "text": "What helped make a good design?", "start": 979.004, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 981.366, "text": "How do we know?", "start": 980.245, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 982.547, "text": "We want to make great designs.", "start": 981.366, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 984.608, "text": "How can we decipher this?", "start": 982.547, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 985.549, "text": "Here's another example.", "start": 984.608, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 989.212, "text": "We see apps and big companies making changes.", "start": 985.549, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 996.798, "text": "And a lot of times, what we end up doing is looking at what other people are doing, which is really, really dangerous, because we don't know why they did it.", "start": 989.212, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1000.368, "text": "We just sort of assume LinkedIn knows what they're doing.", "start": 998.326, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1003.331, "text": "They probably have, like, 50 designers over there.", "start": 1000.368, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1007.435, "text": "I bet they A, B tested the hell out of that.", "start": 1003.331, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1007.795, "text": "Maybe.", "start": 1007.435, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1016.183, "text": "Or maybe they're, like, getting their free swag hoodie at a wine retreat, you know?", "start": 1007.795, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1018.065, "text": "Things like that also happen at big companies.", "start": 1016.183, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1021.098, "text": "But people watch big companies and see what they're doing.", "start": 1018.877, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1032.28, "text": "And so LinkedIn went from this primary navigation in their app of a logo and overflow menu, which you probably don't know that's what the menu is, but there's three little dots there.", "start": 1021.098, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1036.861, "text": "And they shifted over to a bottom navigation menu.", "start": 1032.28, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1040.482, "text": "Was this a good change?", "start": 1036.861, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1041.462, "text": "How do we know?", "start": 1040.482, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1044.343, "text": "Should we do that?", "start": 1041.462, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1045.043, "text": "LinkedIn did it.", "start": 1044.343, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1045.783, "text": "We should probably do it.", "start": 1045.043, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1049.953, "text": "What about when you see another big company like eBay do the opposite?", "start": 1046.372, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1054.355, "text": "They went from a bottom navigation menu to a hamburger menu.", "start": 1049.953, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1059.797, "text": "And now your mind's like, I don't know who to copy.", "start": 1054.355, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1062.598, "text": "Which one?", "start": 1059.797, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1065.379, "text": "Who more likely to have more designers in A-B test?", "start": 1062.598, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1067.54, "text": "I don't know.", "start": 1065.379, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1068.02, "text": "Hard to say.", "start": 1067.54, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1070.593, "text": "So we don't have a lot of proof.", "start": 1069.232, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1075.494, "text": "What about if you see, before, the eBay app used to have a bunch of five-star reviews.", "start": 1070.593, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1079.756, "text": "And after they made that switch, they have a bunch of one-star reviews.", "start": 1075.494, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1080.976, "text": "Does that help you?", "start": 1079.756, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1084.878, "text": "Maybe not so good.", "start": 1080.976, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1087.779, "text": "Gives you a little something to go off of, right?", "start": 1084.878, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1091.34, "text": "If their app ratings plummet when they make a particular kind of design change.", "start": 1087.779, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1094.748, "text": "That may be some evidence.", "start": 1092.708, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1102.65, "text": "What about when six months later, they go from the hamburger menu right back to that bottom navigation menu?", "start": 1094.748, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1104.81, "text": "Then what do you think?", "start": 1102.65, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1110.411, "text": "Well, maybe those guys at Lynx didn't really know what they're doing.", "start": 1104.81, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1114.212, "text": "Sometimes we're blessed by companies that actually take the time to share.", "start": 1110.411, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1115.432, "text": "And they write up stuff.", "start": 1114.212, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1116.852, "text": "They share their data.", "start": 1115.432, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1118.333, "text": "They share their thinking.", "start": 1116.852, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1119.973, "text": "Here's why we made this design change.", "start": 1118.333, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1121.045, "text": "And here's what happened.", "start": 1120.325, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1122.665, "text": "So Spotify did this.", "start": 1121.045, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1123.926, "text": "They ran the same gamut.", "start": 1122.665, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1130.147, "text": "They went from the hamburger menu down to a bottom navigation menu and a redesign recently.", "start": 1123.926, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1134.868, "text": "And a lot of their users kind of praised this on the Twitter sphere as well.", "start": 1130.147, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1136.828, "text": "But they released an article.", "start": 1134.868, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1138.008, "text": "And they talked about what they did.", "start": 1136.828, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1139.328, "text": "They released some stats too.", "start": 1138.008, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1148.13, "text": "And they said, when we made this change, we saw a 30% increase in menu item use and a 9% increase in actions overall.", "start": 1139.328, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1151.961, "text": "Drop mic, right?", "start": 1150.08, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1153.762, "text": "Is that good?", "start": 1151.961, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1158.684, "text": "Do you want your actions to go up 9%?", "start": 1153.762, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1159.124, "text": "Maybe.", "start": 1158.684, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1160.705, "text": "I don't know.", "start": 1159.124, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1165.106, "text": "For google.com, the measure is get people off the page as fast as possible.", "start": 1160.705, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1173.93, "text": "So increasing actions by 9% would be a complete failure for that particular product.", "start": 1165.106, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1175.191, "text": "And again, it's sort of evidence.", "start": 1173.93, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1178.272, "text": "Just because somebody else does it doesn't mean we necessarily should do it.", "start": 1175.191, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1188.347, "text": "Although I bet they had some sort of big party for whoever ran this project, because they had some kind of measure that actions need to go up, and they did it.", "start": 1178.582, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1192.509, "text": "So are these good things?", "start": 1188.347, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1194.17, "text": "Should we be doing these things?", "start": 1192.509, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1204.135, "text": "And I bring all this up because, just to be very, very honest with you, most of the design work I see people doing is they're looking at what other people are doing.", "start": 1194.17, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1210.326, "text": "It's generous to say getting inspiration from.", "start": 1206.465, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1215.648, "text": "It's perhaps a little bit more accurate to say borrowing from.", "start": 1210.326, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1217.869, "text": "But in most cases, they don't know why.", "start": 1215.648, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1221.53, "text": "And as I'll explain, it's dangerous for a couple of reasons.", "start": 1217.869, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1223.251, "text": "A, it could actually harm you.", "start": 1221.53, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1234.695, "text": "But B, it makes it a hell of a lot more difficult to bring all the people along that you need to bring along when you do things like major changes to the digital presence of a company.", "start": 1223.251, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1247.292, "text": "If your only argument is Facebook's doing it, you're standing on a pretty rickety ladder if anybody chooses to challenge that or ask, well, why?", "start": 1235.927, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1250.914, "text": "So my goal is to help you a little bit.", "start": 1247.292, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1254.935, "text": "And I want to kind of go behind the scenes.", "start": 1250.914, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1260.918, "text": "And we did something as part of one of my teams at Google that probably doesn't seem so controversial.", "start": 1254.935, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1266.621, "text": "But hopefully, as I walk you through it, you'll understand that it actually turned out to be a big deal.", "start": 1261.539, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1278.606, "text": "So what we did is we took an Android app, in case this was Google's social network, G+, and we added this bottom navigation menu that I showed you earlier to this app.", "start": 1266.621, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1280.867, "text": "And so a couple things.", "start": 1278.606, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1284.228, "text": "One, why talk so much about a navigation change?", "start": 1280.867, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1291.778, "text": "A navigation change is actually a really, really big deal for how a service is interpreted, right?", "start": 1285.474, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1299.383, "text": "What you see on screen tells you what you can do there, what you should do there, how the thing operates, what value it gives you.", "start": 1291.778, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1305.187, "text": "And not only does it do that, it then also allows you to do the thing that that thing is for.", "start": 1299.383, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1312.892, "text": "So the things you show on the screen about what this does and how you can use it to achieve those things is basically the entire essence of your product.", "start": 1305.187, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1320.761, "text": "So navigation changes, navigation redesigns are a really, really big deal and can have a ton of impact.", "start": 1313.717, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1324.924, "text": "And so they're worth spending a good amount of time on, as you'll see a little bit later.", "start": 1320.761, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1327.745, "text": "And the other reason why I want to talk about this is because I can go pretty deep.", "start": 1324.924, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1335.21, "text": "I can show you all the little things that we did that got to something that, at the end, maybe you're like, well, that's kind of obvious.", "start": 1327.745, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1336.691, "text": "But how did we get there, and why?", "start": 1335.21, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1342.849, "text": "Let's talk about some of the rationale behind this.", "start": 1340.548, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1349.93, "text": "And effectively, there were three really big reasons why we started going down this path.", "start": 1342.849, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1354.531, "text": "One is really wanted to focus on what is this thing good for?", "start": 1349.93, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1360.513, "text": "It may surprise some of you, but it's not clear to a lot of people what Google Plus is for.", "start": 1354.531, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1362.193, "text": "I know that's a shocker, right?", "start": 1360.513, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1364.624, "text": "But it was true.", "start": 1363.143, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1366.806, "text": "So we really wanted to communicate, what is this thing for?", "start": 1364.624, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1368.067, "text": "What's its purpose?", "start": 1366.806, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1369.168, "text": "How can you use it?", "start": 1368.067, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1372.33, "text": "And then we wanted to make sure people actually can use it and can use it easily.", "start": 1369.168, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1373.992, "text": "That's kind of the next two bullets.", "start": 1372.33, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1378.956, "text": "But the first high-level thing was to communicate the core purpose and get people in here.", "start": 1373.992, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1381.878, "text": "And what were we starting from?", "start": 1378.956, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1386.362, "text": "This is kind of what the Android app looked like at the beginning.", "start": 1381.878, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1389.284, "text": "And believe it or not, there actually is a whole bunch of navigation here.", "start": 1386.362, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1395.601, "text": "If anybody can guess where it is, it is that white bar at the top with the word home.", "start": 1390.116, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1400.686, "text": "And do you see that teeny little triangle there, that tiny little guy?", "start": 1395.601, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1412.757, "text": "If you knew that that was something that could guide you to using this app and service, and you then tapped on it, you could actually navigate around.", "start": 1400.686, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1416.3, "text": "But up front, not necessarily clear that that's what you should be doing.", "start": 1412.757, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1425.079, "text": "Now, when and if you got the sense to hit that menu, it would actually reveal all the features within the app.", "start": 1417.092, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1432.145, "text": "And when I say all the features, I mean all the features that were within the app.", "start": 1425.079, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1435.548, "text": "Five years worth of features, as a matter of fact.", "start": 1432.145, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1438.591, "text": "Does anybody use Google Photos?", "start": 1435.548, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1444.336, "text": "How many of you knew all of Google Photos was in Google Plus before we released Google Photos?", "start": 1438.591, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1444.396, "text": "OK.", "start": 1444.336, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1446.66, "text": "Three of you, cool.", "start": 1445.179, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1449.142, "text": "It was.", "start": 1446.66, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1452.163, "text": "Google Maps has this awesome location sharing feature right now.", "start": 1449.142, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1453.644, "text": "It used to be inside of Google+.", "start": 1452.163, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1456.706, "text": "So there's a lot of stuff in here.", "start": 1453.644, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1460.849, "text": "And it was very difficult for people to know what they should be doing.", "start": 1456.706, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1466.212, "text": "Because not only was all this hidden, but everything was sort of treated equally visually.", "start": 1460.849, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1478.463, "text": "Whether it was communities, or locations, or events, or photos, all this stuff was sort of listed out in the exact same way without any clear guidance around what you should or could do here.", "start": 1466.212, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1486.349, "text": "So of course, what we try to do to understand how to make sense of this is we go and get closer to the customers, Jeffrey said.", "start": 1478.463, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1493.455, "text": "And what was really neat is we were able to assemble a group of people who were very passionate and very happy using the product.", "start": 1486.349, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1497.618, "text": "People who are spending hours in there a day, constantly engaging.", "start": 1493.455, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1500.68, "text": "We call them the people who got to a happy state group.", "start": 1497.618, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1509.138, "text": "And we went to these people and we said, hey, people in a happy state, would you mind helping us get other people to a happy state?", "start": 1501.417, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1510.979, "text": "And so we created a community from them.", "start": 1509.138, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1512.859, "text": "We talked to them every now and then.", "start": 1510.979, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1518.7, "text": "And one of the things we asked the people who were in this happy state was, well, what do you use the most?", "start": 1512.859, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1523.961, "text": "Out of all this big, long list of features, what are you doing day in, day out?", "start": 1518.7, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1530.142, "text": "And so the first thing we found was there was two things in particular that they would use multiple times.", "start": 1523.961, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1536.499, "text": "And one of them was this thing called communities, which is like a group of people talking about a topic.", "start": 1531.795, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1547.508, "text": "Another thing is this thing called a collection, which is sort of like a series of posts around a topic, a series of posts around mountain biking, if you will, or artificial intelligence, what have you.", "start": 1536.499, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1550.29, "text": "So people use these two things a whole bunch of times.", "start": 1547.508, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1565.308, "text": "And of course, you can't just listen to what people tell you, because they may not know necessarily the biases they hold, or they may not necessarily think it through, or frankly, they may just lie to you, which actually happens a ton.", "start": 1551.464, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1572.069, "text": "There was a good friend of mine, Bob Moesta, who was one of the co-founders of this thing called Jobs to be Done.", "start": 1565.308, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1578.931, "text": "He always tells the story how he stumbled onto that methodology, because he just got frustrated with people lying to him.", "start": 1572.069, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1583.352, "text": "He would be doing market research for a car company.", "start": 1579.67, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1585.414, "text": "And he'd go and talk to this couple.", "start": 1583.352, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1587.375, "text": "And they're like, we're going to buy a car.", "start": 1585.414, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1588.996, "text": "He's like, oh, OK, well, what kind of car?", "start": 1587.375, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1590.617, "text": "They're like, anything but a minivan.", "start": 1588.996, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1592.859, "text": "There's never going to be a minivan.", "start": 1590.617, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1596.941, "text": "Well, maybe an SUV, or maybe we want this BMW thing over here.", "start": 1592.859, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1600.744, "text": "Three months later, he goes back to them, and they bought a minivan.", "start": 1596.941, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1603.466, "text": "And he's like, what the heck is happening?", "start": 1600.744, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1606.698, "text": "So he got super frustrated, and he made this whole methodology.", "start": 1603.466, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1609.38, "text": "But the bottom line is you can't just listen to what people tell you.", "start": 1606.698, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1611, "text": "It's not the full story.", "start": 1609.38, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1613.722, "text": "So we also look at quantitative data.", "start": 1611, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1616.863, "text": "And when we did, we saw there was actually a nice match.", "start": 1613.722, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1620.685, "text": "There was 1.2 million people joining communities a day.", "start": 1616.863, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1626.167, "text": "So not only are people telling us these things are good, I use them, but we actually see people using them.", "start": 1620.685, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1633.611, "text": "And this combination of the two data points, this quantitative versus qualitative data point, I think is critical.", "start": 1626.167, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1637.919, "text": "So does anybody know what this chart shows?", "start": 1634.598, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1638.579, "text": "I'll give you a hint.", "start": 1637.919, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1646.782, "text": "That's kilometers per hour on the vertical axis there.", "start": 1638.579, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1653.704, "text": "This is a crash in the third stage of the Tour de France based on the onboard computers of the bikers.", "start": 1646.782, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1661.307, "text": "And what you can basically see is they're biking, and everything goes to hell.", "start": 1653.704, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1668.518, "text": "But if you look at the qualitative side, You get a very different story.", "start": 1661.307, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1672.781, "text": "There's a guy walking down the road with blood coming off his leg.", "start": 1668.518, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1681.428, "text": "There's a guy in the back there literally crying because he'd been training for five years for this moment, and somebody locked pedals with him, and he fell, and it's all over.", "start": 1672.781, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1688.254, "text": "You get a very different set of information when you look at the qualitative side than when you get just the quantitative side.", "start": 1681.428, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1690.976, "text": "And so it's very, very important to bring those two things together.", "start": 1688.254, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1693.318, "text": "You can't just look at one or the other.", "start": 1690.976, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1699.22, "text": "Those two things together help you out a lot.", "start": 1695.918, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1703.582, "text": "And when you come back to this, we had a nice affinity.", "start": 1699.22, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1714.367, "text": "The other thing we did, and this is also a realization I've come to over the years, is the average user is anything but.", "start": 1703.582, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1716.888, "text": "Averages are very, very dangerous.", "start": 1714.367, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1719.489, "text": "So what we end up doing is we actually look at the extremes.", "start": 1716.888, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1724.23, "text": "We look at the people who are super active, super happy, love it.", "start": 1720.708, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1729.234, "text": "And then we talk to people who have no idea what the hell is going on.", "start": 1724.23, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1731.175, "text": "Totally on the opposite side of the coin.", "start": 1729.234, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1734.517, "text": "New people who come in and really can't figure things out.", "start": 1731.175, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1741.602, "text": "And we spend a bunch of time seeing where they were overwhelmed, what they were overwhelmed by, and what happened.", "start": 1734.517, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1749.291, "text": "And after getting kind of these different input points in these different types of groups, we ended up with a couple high-level goals.", "start": 1741.602, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1751.712, "text": "One, we want to simplify things for newcomers.", "start": 1749.291, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1757.636, "text": "And two, we want to take the things that make people happy, that make them satisfied, that they like, and bring them front and center.", "start": 1751.712, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1760.938, "text": "Just make it much more clear that that's where the good stuff is.", "start": 1757.636, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1764.66, "text": "So to do that, we did something that's a little bit more like a traditional design process.", "start": 1760.938, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1768.104, "text": "We went and built a bunch of different prototypes.", "start": 1765.503, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1770.585, "text": "We made a prototype a week, roughly.", "start": 1768.104, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1774.026, "text": "Every time we made a prototype, we went and learned in the lab.", "start": 1770.585, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1776.307, "text": "We would then tweak things, change things.", "start": 1774.026, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1778.088, "text": "And at the end of that week, we'd start again.", "start": 1776.307, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1788.892, "text": "And after about seven rounds of this type of behavioral research, what we ended up with is something that was meeting those goals we had.", "start": 1778.088, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1790.953, "text": "We thought we had a design that accomplished this.", "start": 1788.892, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1797.659, "text": "So we found new users would kind of just jump in here and start exploring right away.", "start": 1791.795, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1803.824, "text": "They would use the menu, they'd move between the tabs, and they would get oriented really quickly and easily.", "start": 1797.659, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1813.23, "text": "And our superpower users who love these features, these collections of community things, were immediately able to jump into those areas because they were front and center.", "start": 1803.824, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1816.133, "text": "So this was good.", "start": 1813.23, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1819.495, "text": "And we thought, OK, looks like something is coming together here.", "start": 1816.133, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1832.337, "text": "But in addition to simplifying and making these key actions front and center, we also had this high-level goal that many of you probably have, which is around engagement.", "start": 1821.266, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1834.84, "text": "And sometimes that gets thrown around as a dirty word.", "start": 1832.337, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1841.026, "text": "People do the wrong things for engagement, like throw banner ads at you or all the terrible things we saw before.", "start": 1834.84, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1844.33, "text": "But ultimately, I think we're building software that people should use.", "start": 1841.026, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1847.106, "text": "We would like people to use them.", "start": 1845.204, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1853.772, "text": "And so a very good metric of are you making useful software is, is anybody using it?", "start": 1847.106, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1854.993, "text": "Right?", "start": 1853.772, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1858.296, "text": "And that's why I think this metric comes up all the time around engagement.", "start": 1854.993, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1861.018, "text": "It's not this notoriously bad thing.", "start": 1858.296, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1862.72, "text": "It's I make something.", "start": 1861.018, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1864.081, "text": "If you use it, I feel good.", "start": 1862.72, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1866.623, "text": "So I would like to know if you're using it or not.", "start": 1864.081, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1868.505, "text": "And the more you use it, the gooder I feel.", "start": 1866.623, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1872.944, "text": "So how do we try and figure this out?", "start": 1871.303, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1883.152, "text": "While we were doing all of that traditional kind of usability testing and research, we were also doing something very quantitative.", "start": 1872.944, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1889.597, "text": "And what we ultimately landed on is this methodology called a survival analysis.", "start": 1883.152, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1895.642, "text": "If any of you have seen Survivor, you're probably familiar with how this works, who survives.", "start": 1889.597, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1900.141, "text": "And so what you would do is you take a big sample of people coming into your product.", "start": 1896.538, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1904.103, "text": "So we would carve off a million people who registered today.", "start": 1900.141, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1911.008, "text": "And what we would do is look at that million people who registered today, and we would see, what did they do?", "start": 1904.103, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1917.012, "text": "And what of those actions correlated with them being around later, with them surviving?", "start": 1911.008, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1919.194, "text": "And so what you can see, here's a bunch of actions we tracked.", "start": 1917.012, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1925.531, "text": "like making a comment, joining a community, following someone, getting followed.", "start": 1920.207, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1930.234, "text": "And we would see what was the biggest indicator of what made people come back the next day.", "start": 1925.531, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1935.438, "text": "And how do we get them to return the following day?", "start": 1930.234, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1941.382, "text": "And you can see the number one thing that brought people back the next day was if they followed a collection on their first day.", "start": 1935.438, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1943.163, "text": "There were those lists of topics.", "start": 1941.382, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1948.887, "text": "So if somebody found a topic that interests them and they followed it, high degree of likelihood they would come back the next day.", "start": 1943.163, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1951.528, "text": "So that was good.", "start": 1950.107, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1954.59, "text": "But then we also wanted to see what makes them stick around longer.", "start": 1951.528, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1955.47, "text": "So we changed this.", "start": 1954.59, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1958.612, "text": "And you can see my lines and dots changing here.", "start": 1955.47, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1964.695, "text": "And we said, well, what's the strongest indicator of somebody coming back three weeks later?", "start": 1958.612, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1974.581, "text": "And while following a collection is still up there, you can see joining a community was the strongest indicator of whether or not somebody comes back three weeks later.", "start": 1964.695, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1978.103, "text": "So both of these things were really useful for predicting, are people going to use this?", "start": 1974.581, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1990.211, "text": "Remember, during the other process, what we did is we found that these collections and communities, those same two features, were useful for our happy users.", "start": 1979.526, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1994.372, "text": "And so we put them down inside of this navigation menu.", "start": 1990.211, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 1997.234, "text": "So what happened when we did that?", "start": 1994.372, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2006.681, "text": "what happened to how many people hit the collection screen that had a listing of all these topical pages.", "start": 2000.718, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2007.822, "text": "And you could see that little spike.", "start": 2006.681, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2008.923, "text": "People always ask, what is that?", "start": 2007.822, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2009.963, "text": "That was a test.", "start": 2008.923, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2010.824, "text": "Is anybody going to use it?", "start": 2009.963, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2012.845, "text": "Whoa, OK.", "start": 2010.824, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2014.226, "text": "And then we launched it.", "start": 2012.845, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2018.608, "text": "And we had a 600% increase in the amount of people daily hitting that page.", "start": 2014.226, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2019.989, "text": "Clearly, that's really huge.", "start": 2018.608, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2026.613, "text": "But then it also translated to a 300% increase in the amount of people who were following these collections.", "start": 2019.989, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2034.686, "text": "And so lots of people, not only did they check it out on that page, they actually went and started following these things.", "start": 2027.623, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2038.568, "text": "And we saw very similar stuff happen on the community side.", "start": 2034.686, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2044.37, "text": "You can see the amount of people who went to the community screen, and you can see the amount of people who started joining communities.", "start": 2038.568, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2046.851, "text": "Both of those things go up and to the right.", "start": 2044.37, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2063.102, "text": "And if you come back to what I just showed you a second ago, that the strongest indicator of bringing people back after the first day and the strongest indicator of bringing people back three weeks later, were those same two features that we just grew 300, 600%, what do you think happened?", "start": 2046.851, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2069.506, "text": "The answer is good things.", "start": 2063.102, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2080.473, "text": "And I wanna pause for half a second here and kind of bring up the point, like, the whole time we're doing this, we're kind of growing our confidence in the design decisions we're making.", "start": 2069.506, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2083.475, "text": "At the beginning, like, we don't really know what we're doing.", "start": 2080.473, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2098.084, "text": "But as you do some of this usability testing, you do some of the survival analysis stuff, you look at your data, you go and talk to your happy users, you see new users, whoa, managed software center, no thank you.", "start": 2084.297, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2102.706, "text": "You start gaining more and more confidence, right, that you're down the right path.", "start": 2098.084, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2113.611, "text": "Because it turned out, this design that we had before up here, with that little triangle thing, oops, with that little triangle thing, it really was out of sight.", "start": 2102.706, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2117.232, "text": "and out of mind.", "start": 2115.832, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2133.055, "text": "When we took the things that were already there, these aren't any new things, we just took the things that were already there, we figured out which things are important, we put them in here, we saw a huge impact on very critical metrics, right, the things that we cared about.", "start": 2117.232, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2142.657, "text": "So new navigation helped us simplify and focus, grew engagement, all of these are good things, but there was kind of another thing that we were going through as we were thinking about this.", "start": 2133.055, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2154.245, "text": "And I'll just bucket this under ergonomics, but it's really trying to design for the way people use technology, and in particular, form factors.", "start": 2143.922, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2164.008, "text": "While mobile time spent has been increasing tremendously over the years, the average is right around here, like about 117% across all these form factors.", "start": 2154.245, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2175.9, "text": "But time spent on bigger phones, these things that we call phablets, which I still like to make fun of, But that's been growing the most, because you've got a bigger screen.", "start": 2164.008, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2177.961, "text": "You actually spend more time on it.", "start": 2175.9, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2193.128, "text": "And if you look at where the market is heading, and you can sort of see the trajectory from two years ago to where we're ending up now, the market share of larger phones has been increasing at the expense of smaller phones and tablets in general.", "start": 2177.961, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2198.014, "text": "So when we make design changes to our products, we kind of want to know where things are going.", "start": 2194.153, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2201.535, "text": "Because you don't want that design to be done the day you release it.", "start": 2198.014, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2210.358, "text": "You want to have some future forward thinking that accounts for things like market trends.", "start": 2201.535, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2212.099, "text": "And this is why I think it's important.", "start": 2210.358, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2219.821, "text": "Three years ago, about 7% of active smartphones were 5 and 1 half to 6 inches.", "start": 2212.099, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2221.062, "text": "Three years later, it's like 43%.", "start": 2219.821, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2228.341, "text": "These things can swing really quickly.", "start": 2223.397, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2229.482, "text": "And why do we care?", "start": 2228.341, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2234.706, "text": "You probably have some sense of why we care about the size of phones.", "start": 2229.482, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2238.029, "text": "A, we care because we want to make sure things are comfortable for people.", "start": 2234.706, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2242.393, "text": "But B, we kind of have to have a sense of how are people viewing our content?", "start": 2238.029, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2243.954, "text": "Under what circumstances?", "start": 2242.393, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2246.796, "text": "Other useful stuff to know.", "start": 2243.954, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2250.82, "text": "Smartphones in the three to seven inch range, 90% of the time they're viewed in portrait mode.", "start": 2246.796, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2256.931, "text": "And those numbers go higher the bigger the phones get, and the more modern the phones get.", "start": 2251.787, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2264.397, "text": "When you get to small-sized tablets, like 7 to 9-inch screens, you can see it's less, but still the majority portrait.", "start": 2256.931, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2273.164, "text": "Once you cross that 9-inch line, then people shift to landscape as the majority use.", "start": 2264.397, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2279.609, "text": "So knowing kind of the size of these screens, how people interact with them, helps us make sure that we create comfortable software.", "start": 2273.164, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2290.102, "text": "You want to put things in the nice green zone as opposed to the owie zone up here.", "start": 2280.578, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2298.205, "text": "So we want our, as phones get more fability, we want to make sure our designs become less ouchity.", "start": 2290.102, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2303.967, "text": "So for example, primary action to check in on this app called Swarm used to be up and to the right.", "start": 2298.205, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2305.728, "text": "Now they put it down in the center middle.", "start": 2303.967, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2313.717, "text": "nice and easy, comfortable to hit when your hand is like this.", "start": 2306.833, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2317.46, "text": "So we want to be inside of this comfortable, easy to hit use.", "start": 2313.717, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2322.823, "text": "And if you come back to Apple Maps, they actually made a bunch of design adjustments that kind of account for this behavior.", "start": 2317.46, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2326.723, "text": "So once you're in direction mode, you kind of know where you're going.", "start": 2323.442, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2328.064, "text": "There's a little panel on the bottom.", "start": 2326.723, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2330.745, "text": "And you can effectively just swipe up with your thumb.", "start": 2328.064, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2332.226, "text": "You just sort of thrash at it.", "start": 2330.745, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2333.246, "text": "It flicks up.", "start": 2332.226, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2335.727, "text": "It gives you a whole bunch of information about where you're going.", "start": 2333.246, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2339.689, "text": "And then you can just sort of flop it down, and it comes right back.", "start": 2335.727, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2343.631, "text": "So it's just like quick and easy flick.", "start": 2339.689, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2349.073, "text": "Here inside of when you're looking at the directions in detail, you can also do the same thing, flip it up.", "start": 2343.631, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2355.236, "text": "And you get a whole bunch of nice ways to see the details, get the overview, turn on audio.", "start": 2349.875, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2361.518, "text": "And there's an opportunity to close it, although my animation there didn't work so well.", "start": 2355.236, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2374.502, "text": "Now, this is cool, but you have to be a little careful when you do this, because this is the Apple music redesign that came out around that same time.", "start": 2361.518, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2378.963, "text": "And what we saw was a lot of people couldn't figure out how they could shuffle their music.", "start": 2374.502, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2384.104, "text": "If you say it's behind those three dots, it's not.", "start": 2380.543, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2394.388, "text": "The way you do it is you actually have to scroll the thing up, and there's shuffle and repeat.", "start": 2384.104, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2396.969, "text": "And that's how it goes.", "start": 2394.388, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2404.632, "text": "And I'm very fond of saying you don't have to be a designer to know where there's usability problems.", "start": 2396.969, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2406.272, "text": "It's very easy to find usability problems.", "start": 2404.632, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2407.513, "text": "You just look for the Band-Aids.", "start": 2406.272, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2413.008, "text": "You know where people are hurt based on where they have bandages on.", "start": 2408.685, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2415.589, "text": "So let me show you an example of a design bandage.", "start": 2413.008, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2422.473, "text": "When the Apple support account tweets, hey, want to repeat that song?", "start": 2415.589, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2425.875, "text": "Here's an animated GIF of how to find that.", "start": 2422.473, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2430.458, "text": "That's a band-aid.", "start": 2425.875, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2431.538, "text": "Can't find how to shuffle?", "start": 2430.458, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2432.919, "text": "Here you go.", "start": 2431.538, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2434.34, "text": "So that's one band-aid you see.", "start": 2432.919, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2441.596, "text": "Then in iOS 10.2 or something like that, When you open up music, up pops a little modal.", "start": 2434.34, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2445.777, "text": "Now playing, you can swipe up to repeat, shuffle, and go next.", "start": 2441.596, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2446.337, "text": "Got it?", "start": 2445.777, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2448.217, "text": "Got it.", "start": 2446.337, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2450.117, "text": "You know what this is?", "start": 2448.217, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2451.358, "text": "Band-Aid, right?", "start": 2450.117, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2452.838, "text": "These little mobile things.", "start": 2451.358, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2462.7, "text": "And then in addition to that, not only did they put in that overlay, but they changed the buttons to be these big things that actually say the word shuffle and the word repeat.", "start": 2452.838, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2463.76, "text": "Another Band-Aid you can find.", "start": 2462.7, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2472.131, "text": "So when you see these things, you know there was problems before, but all in all, This bottom card pattern is a nice example of some of these ideas, right?", "start": 2463.76, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2476.652, "text": "Bottom aligned, comfortable for use, and accounts for where things are going.", "start": 2472.131, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2483.755, "text": "So it's one of the reasons why we kind of align towards that bottom nav as part of this process as well.", "start": 2476.652, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2485.315, "text": "OK.", "start": 2483.755, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2488.556, "text": "So, so far I've told you just a bunch of good things.", "start": 2485.315, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2489.576, "text": "We want to make it easier.", "start": 2488.556, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2490.336, "text": "We made it easier.", "start": 2489.576, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2492.377, "text": "We want to grow engagement.", "start": 2490.336, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2493.237, "text": "We grew engagement.", "start": 2492.377, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2494.778, "text": "We want to make it comfortable.", "start": 2493.237, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2495.558, "text": "We made it comfortable.", "start": 2494.778, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2499.767, "text": "And this is where most of these talks end, right?", "start": 2496.745, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2502.268, "text": "OK, thanks, bye, good luck.", "start": 2499.767, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2504.83, "text": "But what about the negative stuff?", "start": 2502.268, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2506.771, "text": "Nobody talks about the negative stuff, right?", "start": 2504.83, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2508.952, "text": "Did anything bad ever happen?", "start": 2506.771, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2511.414, "text": "What do we get wrong?", "start": 2508.952, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2516.977, "text": "You know, like Spotify, actions are up 9%.", "start": 2511.414, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2525.522, "text": "So in the interest of continuing to kind of peel back the curtain behind this process, I'm going to talk about some of the things that were bad.", "start": 2516.977, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2532.705, "text": "And the first most bad thing that we heard from people was this.", "start": 2527.143, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2539.328, "text": "Our top complaint was, hey, this thing is taking up too much space.", "start": 2532.705, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2541.209, "text": "I like to see the big pictures.", "start": 2539.328, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2542.69, "text": "I like to see the big text.", "start": 2541.209, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2544.21, "text": "And you put this bar on here.", "start": 2542.69, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2547.592, "text": "And with this Android bar and that Android bar, I'm all barred up.", "start": 2544.21, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2563.025, "text": "And we had originally wanted to make it so that when you scroll down the page, what would happen is the menus would go away, and you could actually get this nice full screen view for beautiful images like that.", "start": 2549.037, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2565.167, "text": "Just didn't get around to it.", "start": 2563.025, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2567.068, "text": "Too many other things happening.", "start": 2565.167, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2568.288, "text": "But it was in the works.", "start": 2567.068, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2569.489, "text": "It almost had made the cut.", "start": 2568.288, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2570.89, "text": "It didn't really get into the release.", "start": 2569.489, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2576.007, "text": "But it was super easy to get this out a week or two later because we just finished the work.", "start": 2571.565, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2582.969, "text": "And because it was the number one complaint, it was pretty easy to rationalize it with everybody.", "start": 2576.007, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2584.55, "text": "So that was good.", "start": 2582.969, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2589.751, "text": "And by the way, there's some challenges with this implementation too, but I won't jump into those right now.", "start": 2584.55, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2591.052, "text": "The next one was a lot harder.", "start": 2589.751, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2603.729, "text": "The second complaint we got basically consisted of lots of people emailing me, tweeting me, posting to me one particular URL.", "start": 2592.041, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2614.996, "text": "And that particular URL was to this Android developer's guideline page that we, Google, had put out, which basically says, don't use bottom tab bars.", "start": 2603.729, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2620.019, "text": "Other platforms use the bottom tab bar, but Android tabs do not use that.", "start": 2614.996, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2632.847, "text": "So literally, for months, I would wake up in the morning, and my inbox would be full of people like, hey, dumbass, why don't you go and look at your own company's design guidelines?", "start": 2621.903, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2634.208, "text": "Because apparently, you can't read.", "start": 2632.847, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2646.052, "text": "Like, I don't know, duh, like the action bar, like every other Android app.", "start": 2634.208, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2647.713, "text": "That was a very fun period of my life.", "start": 2646.052, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2653.104, "text": "So what do we do about this?", "start": 2651.603, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2654.085, "text": "This is a much tougher issue.", "start": 2653.104, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2655.806, "text": "It's not just a feature that we can push.", "start": 2654.085, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2665.291, "text": "This is something that a very large company has publicly told a whole community of people making apps for 2 billion devices to do.", "start": 2655.806, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2667.593, "text": "Much harder ship to turn.", "start": 2665.291, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2672.075, "text": "We couldn't just go and ship our own code and make this happen.", "start": 2667.593, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2681.079, "text": "So what we ended up doing is I started telling the story Internally, very similar to what I told you, I started saying, hey, we did this survival analysis stuff.", "start": 2672.075, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2682.059, "text": "We brought these features.", "start": 2681.079, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2684.1, "text": "And look at the numbers that went up and to the right.", "start": 2682.059, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2685.36, "text": "Look at this 600%.", "start": 2684.1, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2686.78, "text": "Look at this 300%.", "start": 2685.36, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2689.201, "text": "This is really working for us.", "start": 2686.78, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2694.522, "text": "Our friends at Photos, who are sitting right next door, basically said, oh, yeah, that's pretty cool.", "start": 2689.201, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2695.482, "text": "We should try that out.", "start": 2694.522, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2696.262, "text": "They tried it out.", "start": 2695.482, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2697.923, "text": "They saw similar good things happen.", "start": 2696.262, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2698.843, "text": "And they released this.", "start": 2697.923, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2706.241, "text": "And what happened is a couple more apps within the company started doing this, started seeing similar impact to us.", "start": 2699.717, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2707.341, "text": "And we worked with them.", "start": 2706.241, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2715.506, "text": "And then finally, the material design team, which is responsible for these conventions and guidelines, said, hey, you know what?", "start": 2707.341, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2716.267, "text": "This is right.", "start": 2715.506, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2717.387, "text": "We should do something about this.", "start": 2716.267, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2726.132, "text": "And they updated the Android guidelines to include a bottom navigation menu, which is now out there for apps to use.", "start": 2717.387, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2727.953, "text": "And some people were a little upset about this.", "start": 2726.132, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2729.154, "text": "How can you change this?", "start": 2727.953, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2733.612, "text": "But I like to think guidelines should be an evolving thing.", "start": 2729.951, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2736.913, "text": "If we learn something, we should continue to make it better.", "start": 2733.612, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2745.936, "text": "We shouldn't blindly hold to rules that maybe were set during different phases of technology or things like that.", "start": 2736.913, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2754.419, "text": "So learning and continually changing, I think, is a good thing, as opposed to dogmatically sticking to a rule, even in the presence of data.", "start": 2745.936, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2758.615, "text": "It's not just us in photos now.", "start": 2757.335, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2760.696, "text": "A bunch of apps have gone into this.", "start": 2758.615, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2762.176, "text": "And it's funny to see.", "start": 2760.696, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2763.197, "text": "So this is YouTube, right?", "start": 2762.176, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2766.678, "text": "YouTube in 2014 had a hamburger menu.", "start": 2763.197, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2770.259, "text": "And then in 2015, they did a top tab menu.", "start": 2766.678, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2774.38, "text": "Then in 2016, they took some of that stuff out and put in a floating action button.", "start": 2770.259, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2779.621, "text": "And then this year, they went to this bottom navigation menu.", "start": 2774.38, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2780.882, "text": "And I like this picture.", "start": 2779.621, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2786.51, "text": "in this sequence, because it just shows what most people are doing all the time.", "start": 2781.868, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2788.791, "text": "We're moving pixels around.", "start": 2786.51, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2790.051, "text": "Should I put it here?", "start": 2788.791, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2791.392, "text": "Let's put them there.", "start": 2790.051, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2792.432, "text": "Let's put them over here.", "start": 2791.392, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2794.773, "text": "What if we put it over here?", "start": 2792.432, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2799.314, "text": "And again, it comes back to having the confidence to believe in the decisions you're making.", "start": 2794.773, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2804.476, "text": "There's a million ways you can arrange the navigation in an app.", "start": 2799.314, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2805.917, "text": "Which one should you do?", "start": 2804.476, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2808.078, "text": "How many are you going to try?", "start": 2805.917, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2808.858, "text": "Where is it going to end up?", "start": 2808.078, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2820.156, "text": "So complaint number two about the Google has guidelines that say don't do this, and we did it, was averted after a multi-month process.", "start": 2810.113, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2822.697, "text": "But I think it was worth it in the end.", "start": 2820.156, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2826.398, "text": "And then complaint number three, I'll be honest with you.", "start": 2822.697, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2831.399, "text": "Complaint number three was the most emotionally challenging for me personally.", "start": 2826.398, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2834.98, "text": "Because I would receive commentary like this, thank you Bing for the translation.", "start": 2831.399, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2841.418, "text": "I brain-free spring manure G plus bottom bar for a long time now.", "start": 2836.857, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2843.919, "text": "Even the Google gallery has also been falling.", "start": 2841.418, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2851.28, "text": "At Luke W, your mom blew up.", "start": 2843.919, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2852.721, "text": "So I called my mom.", "start": 2851.28, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2854.801, "text": "I'm like, Mom, are you OK?", "start": 2852.721, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2855.761, "text": "She did not blow up.", "start": 2854.801, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2857.322, "text": "It was OK.", "start": 2855.761, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2862.563, "text": "It was kind of like a false start there for half a second.", "start": 2857.322, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2869.858, "text": "But the number three complaint we got was just people didn't like it.", "start": 2863.914, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2874.3, "text": "This stupid gray bar at the bottom is a horrible thing.", "start": 2869.858, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2878.202, "text": "When are you killing the ugly black bar menu?", "start": 2874.3, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2880.244, "text": "It's on and on and on like this.", "start": 2878.202, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2905.847, "text": "And I have to admit, it is puzzling to me in some ways just how much passion people have about app navigation menus I put little dots on there so I don't offend anyone.", "start": 2880.244, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2913.193, "text": "For a while, there was a trending hashtag on Google Plus that was, does Luke get fired yet?", "start": 2905.847, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2921.86, "text": "And then they started replacing fired with other adjectives, which I'll leave to your imagination to figure out what those could be.", "start": 2913.193, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2923.141, "text": "And you know what?", "start": 2921.86, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2923.922, "text": "I'll be honest with you.", "start": 2923.141, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2925.463, "text": "This kind of sucks, right?", "start": 2923.922, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2937.456, "text": "Totally sucks to be told your mom's blowing up and you're brain-free, you're spraying manure, and I'm not even gonna read the last one, right?", "start": 2927.051, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2940.698, "text": "Doesn't make you feel good, does it?", "start": 2937.456, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2944.74, "text": "But how do you keep going, and why do you keep going?", "start": 2940.698, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2949.262, "text": "What if I was just like, well, Facebook did it.", "start": 2944.74, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2951.783, "text": "Well, how quickly could I back off from that position?", "start": 2949.262, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2961.001, "text": "The only rationale I had for making this bottom navigation menu change is because I saw LinkedIn did it, right?", "start": 2953.517, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2965.284, "text": "Well, Spotify, 9% actions, that's why.", "start": 2961.001, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2968.765, "text": "Really flimsy construct to stand on, right?", "start": 2965.284, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2973.328, "text": "But what if instead I was spending a whole bunch of time with people who are in a happy state?", "start": 2968.765, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2977.991, "text": "I've run survival analyses to see the actions that keep people around.", "start": 2973.328, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2979.431, "text": "I've seen the metrics go up.", "start": 2977.991, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2982.133, "text": "I've seen that whole picture, and I've been part of that whole process.", "start": 2979.431, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2986.421, "text": "How confident do you think I feel at that point?", "start": 2982.758, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2993.967, "text": "And how much more willing am I to wake up in the morning and read this again and be like, yeah, you know, I understand, but I'm still going to do this.", "start": 2986.421, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 2998.811, "text": "I still know it's the right thing to do.", "start": 2993.967, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3001.993, "text": "And by the way, I should say, everything's a learning opportunity.", "start": 2998.811, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3005.616, "text": "So did anybody notice a pattern kind of where a lot of these comments are coming from?", "start": 3001.993, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3009.069, "text": "You want to know what happened?", "start": 3007.447, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3015.956, "text": "In a number of Asian markets, there's a lot of cheap Android tablet use.", "start": 3009.069, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3017.858, "text": "And people use Google Plus on there.", "start": 3015.956, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3029.243, "text": "And what happened with these tablets that are kind of wide, when we added the bottom bar and it was translated into character-based languages, The text was really small.", "start": 3017.858, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3031.504, "text": "It was just like two characters for each thing.", "start": 3029.243, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3033.746, "text": "So what people would get is this black bar on the bottom.", "start": 3031.504, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3036.467, "text": "And in the middle was like four little icons of like two words.", "start": 3033.746, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3039.389, "text": "And there's just this big spacing on the sides.", "start": 3036.467, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3044.872, "text": "And no wonder they're pissed off and telling me it's horrible and foolish and looks bad.", "start": 3039.389, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3053.837, "text": "So even in the darkest corners of the Trollosphere, there may be an insight lurking.", "start": 3044.872, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3053.957, "text": "So.", "start": 3053.837, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3059.595, "text": "At this point, I think it's worth remembering this quote.", "start": 3056.812, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3063.439, "text": "This is from the first Pulitzer Prize winning reporter.", "start": 3059.595, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3067.583, "text": "He actually ended up winning it three times in a row, Herbert Swope.", "start": 3063.439, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3074.689, "text": "And he says, I can't tell you how to be successful, but I can tell you how to fail, which is try to make everybody happy.", "start": 3067.583, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3078.133, "text": "And I think this is a really important thing that we forget a bunch of times.", "start": 3074.689, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3079.187, "text": "Right?", "start": 3078.767, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3090.749, "text": "We're so focused on trying to make everybody OK with the changes that we're making that sometimes we ignore the fact that when somebody really hates what you're doing, it's a sign they care.", "start": 3079.187, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3092.03, "text": "Why am I getting all these emails?", "start": 3090.749, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3093.55, "text": "Because people are actually passionate about it.", "start": 3092.03, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3095.79, "text": "They're trying to use the thing.", "start": 3093.55, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3099.671, "text": "If nobody emailed me about it, then I would be really concerned.", "start": 3095.79, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3103.012, "text": "Because that means no one gives a rat's patooey.", "start": 3099.671, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3107.4, "text": "When you've got really happy people or really angry people, that's a good thing.", "start": 3104.036, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3111.024, "text": "When you get no reaction whatsoever, that's a dangerous thing.", "start": 3107.4, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3121.416, "text": "The other thing is the types of changes that we're trying to make, changes that are really impactful, changes that move things 600%, 300%, those are usually big, meaty changes.", "start": 3111.024, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3125.12, "text": "They're not like changing the button from green to yellow or whatever, right?", "start": 3121.416, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3130.802, "text": "We've come up with a methodology of A-B testing to take arguments out of things.", "start": 3125.977, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3133.884, "text": "Because you make these tiny little things, oh, that performed a little bit better.", "start": 3130.802, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3135.186, "text": "OK, it performed better.", "start": 3133.884, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3137.108, "text": "We're all good.", "start": 3135.186, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3139.65, "text": "And we don't take these big jumps.", "start": 3137.108, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3147.557, "text": "We don't make harder steps, things that actually rustle some feathers, or frankly, irk people.", "start": 3139.65, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3152.402, "text": "And to come back to a tech quote So this is a tech talk, not one about reporting.", "start": 3147.557, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3153.542, "text": "This is Mr.", "start": 3152.402, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3156.424, "text": "Steven Sinofsky, who ran Windows for a long time.", "start": 3153.542, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3160.646, "text": "He's now a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.", "start": 3156.424, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3165.489, "text": "And what he says here is, products without a point of view have no point.", "start": 3160.646, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3170.411, "text": "And I like this because it kind of references the fact you need a compass.", "start": 3165.489, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3172.293, "text": "You need a direction to be going.", "start": 3170.411, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3173.913, "text": "And how do you tune your compass?", "start": 3172.293, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3176.495, "text": "How do you figure out the direction you should go?", "start": 3173.913, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3191.72, "text": "All these kind of processes that I walked you through, that iteration, that constant learning, that closeness to the customer, tunes your compass so that your point of view is sailing your ship in the right direction.", "start": 3177.472, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3195.082, "text": "And I think it matters a ton to get that right.", "start": 3191.72, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3205.917, "text": "The other point I'd like to make here is, and it comes back to what I was saying about the A-B testing, I hear a lot of people using the phrase data-driven decision-making.", "start": 3195.082, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3207.758, "text": "Have any of you heard that?", "start": 3205.917, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3209.938, "text": "We're a data-driven company.", "start": 3207.758, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3211.679, "text": "Very dangerous.", "start": 3209.938, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3214.559, "text": "Data shouldn't make the decisions for you.", "start": 3211.679, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3218.1, "text": "People should make decisions for you.", "start": 3214.559, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3222.161, "text": "And so data-informed, I think, is a great thing to aspire to be.", "start": 3218.1, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3225.402, "text": "We want to be a data-informed decision-making company.", "start": 3222.161, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3229.543, "text": "But data-driven, eh, quite challenging.", "start": 3225.402, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3239.299, "text": "especially when it comes time to stand up around big changes and things that may not be as popular.", "start": 3230.233, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3245.082, "text": "And so I think this point of view applies to things that may seem trivial or may seem small.", "start": 3239.299, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3254.128, "text": "I've often had conversations with people that say things to me like, hey, Luke, you did all that work for such an obvious design change?", "start": 3245.082, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3257.23, "text": "You did all that work just to make a bottom tab bar?", "start": 3254.128, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3257.57, "text": "Well, yeah.", "start": 3257.23, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3258.988, "text": "I did.", "start": 3258.688, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3261.469, "text": "And I think it was worth it.", "start": 3258.988, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3265.509, "text": "Not only do I think it was worth it, I think it was really, really worth it.", "start": 3261.469, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3272.671, "text": "And when you get that kind of question, I actually think it's a really positive indicator that you're doing something right.", "start": 3265.509, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3274.291, "text": "Such an obvious design change.", "start": 3272.671, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3276.972, "text": "Is it worth it?", "start": 3274.291, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3281.733, "text": "Is all that work and effort for something that feels so obvious worth the effort?", "start": 3276.972, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3283.693, "text": "Well, you tell me.", "start": 3281.733, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3295.067, "text": "So to wrap this up, and maybe I'll have time for a question or two if I'm lucky, we talked about a couple things.", "start": 3287.322, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3297.849, "text": "One, design is obvious in retrospect.", "start": 3295.067, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3308.036, "text": "But in order to reveal that obviousness, in order to go on that journey and know which path is illuminated, where is the light shining, where should you go, you've got to go through this process.", "start": 3297.849, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3310.358, "text": "You can't just copy patterns.", "start": 3308.036, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3315.001, "text": "And to do that, you want to get as close to insights as possible.", "start": 3310.358, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3315.862, "text": "And the more, the merrier.", "start": 3315.001, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3323.784, "text": "Another common question is, should I do usability testing, or should I do A-B testing, or should I do ethnographic field research?", "start": 3316.823, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3324.564, "text": "Sure.", "start": 3323.784, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3326.645, "text": "Do whatever.", "start": 3324.564, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3328.825, "text": "The more you learn, the better off you are.", "start": 3326.645, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3334.886, "text": "When it comes time to either make or defend that decision, the more confident you'll feel.", "start": 3328.825, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3339.287, "text": "And that, again, to come back to my point, you can't just look at the quantitative or the qualitative.", "start": 3334.886, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3341.948, "text": "You want to at least look at both sides.", "start": 3339.287, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3343.828, "text": "And last but not least, we just talked about it.", "start": 3341.948, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3349.534, "text": "No matter how data informed you are and how right you think you are, you're not going to please everybody.", "start": 3344.689, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3350.636, "text": "That's OK.", "start": 3349.534, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3354.019, "text": "That's why you have a point of view, a compass.", "start": 3350.636, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3358.064, "text": "And things that are impactful aren't always popular with everyone.", "start": 3354.019, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3360.266, "text": "And that's OK.", "start": 3358.064, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3362.929, "text": "You can piss some people off.", "start": 3360.266, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3363.89, "text": "I'll leave you with that.", "start": 3362.929, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3380.718, "text": "I think I left time for two questions.", "start": 3378.876, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3383.682, "text": "Is that right, Toby, or not at all?", "start": 3380.718, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3384.643, "text": "OK.", "start": 3383.682, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3385.685, "text": "I got it.", "start": 3384.643, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3386.966, "text": "There's mics in the aisles.", "start": 3385.685, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3388.288, "text": "If you want to ask a question, yay.", "start": 3386.966, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3392.693, "text": "If you want to eat lunch, yay.", "start": 3388.288, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3394.776, "text": "No one's rushing to the mic, so eat some lunch.", "start": 3392.693, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3397.52, "text": "I'll hang out up here and talk to people who would like to talk.", "start": 3394.776, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 3397.7, "text": "Thanks.", "start": 3397.52, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}], "transcriptBySpeakers": [{"end": 3397.5246285714284, "text": "Yeah, so depressing how few mosaic people are left. It's kind of like when you get old, all your friends start to die off. It's like the news gets more and more depressing. Prince, David Bowie, mosaic users. Yeah. So anyway, since it's a little bit before lunch, you may be starting to get a bit tired. I have a way of awakening you, I hope. Let's see if it works. Okay, should we make that louder? Okay, let's try that a little bit louder, because there's a part after that that's even better. All right, is it cranked? All right, Denver. Here it comes. And thank you very much. So, a couple years ago, We had a lawsuit in the tech industry. It was actually the biggest patent lawsuit in the technology industry to date. There was $2 billion under contention. And it made all the press that you'd expect. People were talking about it around the world. Because what happened was it was Apple suing Samsung over the design of the iPhone. All right, and you all are probably familiar with the iPhone. It's the one on the right or left. I think it's the one on the left. And what happened was Apple said, hey, Samsung, you're copying. You're infringing on our patents. I think they had like three utility patents, four design patents or something like that for this device. But there was one patent in particular that formed the basis of this lawsuit for why Apple took a $2 billion effort against Samsung. And it was something that literally had a picture that just looked like this. It was just this little rectangle. And as design patents are, they're basically just pictures. There's very few words. And Apple's design patent had very, very few words. And I have to read from my screen so I get the lawyer speak correct. It said, this patent covers this smartphone and its ornamental design substantially as shown and described. That's all it said. And what you saw was just kind of this black rectangle. And it was this design that Samsung called in a whole bunch of expert witnesses. They sort of paraded a whole bunch of them through. And what they argued was, you can't protect this. This is not only something that we're not going to pay any money for, but this patent shouldn't be valid. And why did they say that? They said, because it's so obvious. It's such an obvious design. It's just a rectangle. Anybody could have gotten there eventually. How can you protect something that is so inevitable, so obvious, such a kind of design that anyone can get to? But if we go back now about 10 years and we look at the introduction of this obvious product, were things really as obvious back then as they claimed about what this would become? Because when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, for those of you that remember, he basically said it was three different things. So of the three things that came to create this device, one was the iPod, the other one was the phone, and the third one was the internet communicator. We all laugh. Every time I say that now, people laugh. But that's literally what they called it, the internet communicator. And it was the combination of these three things together that was supposed to create this next generation device that was going to leapfrog the devices that were out there. Because if you remember, there actually were smartphones at the time of this. They just looked like BlackBerrys, Motorola Q thing, those sorts of devices. So there was like 60 million of those sold a year at the time. But the modern mobile smartphone started off as a combination of these three things. So let's look at it. iPod was this original concept that Apple had a lot of success with of storing a thousand songs in your pocket. You put all these songs on this little iPod, you carry them around with you, and you basically download your music and listen to it anywhere. And it had a pretty good run. So if we look at what the growth rates of song download on iTunes looked like. Back in 2006, when this device came out, they were growing at something like 60%. Then they grew at 40%, and now we have hit negative growth. So the 1,000 songs in your pocket really didn't pan out to be as transformational as maybe people at the time thought. Very compelling at the time, but has quite clearly petered off since then. So what about the phone part? Maybe the phone was the special sauce that merited this $2 billion lawsuit. And again, if you look at the phone over the years, clearly a lot of these devices have made their way into our pockets. But if you look at the amount of voice data that's happening, it's pretty much just stayed flat. Despite more and more of these devices entering the market, all the time. The amount that we spend talking on them via phones is not really changing. In fact, it's interesting. If you go and ask people, how many times do you actually make a voice call on your smartphone per week? This is actually per week. And about five years ago or so, almost everybody was taking a voice call at least once per week. Now, 30% of people don't even take a call once a week. I'm one of those people, by the way. If my phone rings, what is this? Kind of freaks me out. So not only does data show it from a quantitative perspective, but also when you talk to people, you find that the same thing is true. So the phone didn't really seem to be the thing that merited this $2 billion lawsuit. So what happens if we then look at the internet communicator And the funny thing about the internet communicator, it was the thing that got the least amount of time during that original keynote. It was a really brief section where they talked about this thing. But if you go back to my voice versus data chart, and now instead of only showing voice information, I show the actual data. Here we go. You can see that actually turned out to be a very, very big thing. So the big win out of this was the internet communicator piece. And having this personal computer in our pockets connected to the internet has given birth to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of ideas, not the least of which is streaming music. So it's not that Apple was necessarily wrong that we like to have music in our pockets. It's just that iPod's structure of downloading songs actually has, over time, given way to more of an internet communicator-based means of listening to music through streaming. And if you compare where people are making money, you can see music streaming has surpassed music downloads. And in fact, music streaming is now actually some substantial portion of overall music revenue. I think within the year, it's going to cross the 50% mark and become the dominant way by which people make money off of music. So it's not that the songs were wrong. It's just that they were all about the internet communicator. And so when I look at this. And I kind of come back to that original introduction. I see these three things, and I say to myself, you know what? One out of three ain't too bad. But it's also an interesting story in terms of evolution and iteration. We tend to put a lot of credit in the original introduction of things and getting it all right at the same time. And even the most popular product in terms of scale, the smartphone, really took a while to find its course. It wasn't immediately clear what that thing was good for. A similar story is going on with smartwatches and a lot of other technology that we have in our lives. There's a period where you kind of have to keep with it and figure out what it's good for. So anyway, not a lot necessarily obvious at launch, right? A lot had to be learned. But to come back to this Apple versus Samsung thing, we heard Samsung's side of the argument. Design is inevitable. Anybody would have come up with it over time. It's super obvious. What did Apple argue? What was their side of the coin? They said, obvious? Inevitable? Are you freaking kidding me? Do you have any idea how many prototypes we made over the five years that we locked people in the basement to create this thing? They didn't see their families. They couldn't go home on weekends because we're churning through so many prototypes and form factors to get to what you now call obvious. There's a huge amount of variances, refinement, and painstaking work to get to this thing. that you now see in front of you. In fact, let's zoom in and look at a whole bunch of these things together. They said no design detail was immune from this process, even very simple things, stuff that seemed like it would be pretty clear, like the hardware button. They had 50 different refinements of that hardware button. So span that out over five years. That's like almost every month is another hardware button review. There you go again. Let's look at it one more time. And it's like 10 hardware button refinements per year. It's pretty brutal. So their core thesis was what seems obvious now clearly was not. Took many years of iteration, lots and lots of prototypes, lots and lots of hardware reviews. But in the end, yeah, we did get to something that feels inevitable. And kind of the statement that comes to mind is design is only obvious in retrospect. It's after you've gone through all that hard work, and you've tried all these things that don't work, and eventually you've gotten to the thing that does work, that's where it feels clear. That's where it feels focused. That's where it feels, if I can use the word, right. So that sounds good. We all want to create these obvious designs. If it's only obvious in retrospect that something is good or inevitable, how do you figure it out along the way? How do you create these kinds of obvious designs? Well, sticking with Apple for half a second, we can go back to looking at the release of Maps on iOS. When iOS 10 came out, they did a big redesign of iOS Maps. And one of the things that happened with the original Maps release, at least for Apple, they got a lot of slack for this. Do you remember why? It would kind of drive you into a lake when you're trying to go home. It would label ancient cathedrals as Burger Kings. Does anybody remember this? Mapgate or whatever, they just throw gate at the end of everything now. So this was a really maligned release for them. Caused them a ton of headaches, created real problems, and actually, in some cases, endangered people. One operating system ago, they redesigned maps completely, and they went from that old version that had stuck around for a couple years to a totally redesigned version. And now, if you look at the conversations people have about Apple Maps, it's completely flipped. In fact, these things are universally praised. So just as a small example here, so much better, truly confusing before. The new Apple Maps are a breath of fresh air in the Apple ecosystem. I believe that's a nerd compliment, so I think it's good. Now, if you care about obviousness and simplicity in design, you probably get curious when something that had a lot of problems before was characterized as confusing, hard to use, just overall bad, to now people love it and think it's great. Well, what did they change? How did they make that transition? from difficult and confusing to fresh breath of air. And so we can look at some of the changes that happened. And we can take what people in the industry call a heuristic evaluation. A heuristic evaluation is basically, I know something about design. I'll look at it and tell you what I think based on my experience, things I've seen, what have you. And so looking at it that way, we can kind of identify some of these reasons. And it also helps in a heuristic evaluation if you have some core use cases, or you kind of can evaluate against what people are trying to do. That's really useful. So one key use case for Maps is going somewhere, getting directions. So the way you would do that before in Maps, you would have to tap Search to start. That's a little weird. In the new version, however, there is a field that says, where do you want to go? What do you think is more obvious? Probably the thing that says, where do you want to go, perhaps. Another example. In the previous version of Maps, the way you actually start directions is you hit that blue text on screen there, the one that's a tiny bit more bluish and bolder. See that one? route, not to be confused with all the other blue text on there. In the redesigned version, you have this giant thing that looks like a touchable element. We in the industry call it a button. You may have forgotten what those look like, but that's what they are. And you can see it says directions, 30 minute drive. There's a big kind of strong visual contrast, to use the language of design, right? Visual contrast, affordance. Affordance looks like something you can tap. Strong visual contrast makes something pop up. So you want a primary action that's really bold and noticeable. And clearly, big difference between this before and after view, right? So we can say maybe these primary actions, maybe these clear call to actions, all these things are adding up And in fact, net-net, there was a ton of design changes. Many of them likely contributed to these positive feelings. So if we look before, there was a separation between where you're going and how you're going to get there. And in the new version, there's this really clear, to Charleston Road, from my location, 30 minutes, fastest route, go. And you've got the drive, walk, transit options right there, as opposed to separated. And if you show these to two people and you ask, which one's more obvious? Guess which one they're going to pick. They'll be, duh. Well, if it's so duh, why did that design A, get made, B, live on for at least three or four years? So it's not necessarily so obvious at the time how this looks. But again, strong visual contrast, all these things. So many things kind of came together. But do we really know which ones were the important ones? Was it the contrast? Was it the button shape? Was it the copy that we inserted in there? What helped make a good design? How do we know? We want to make great designs. How can we decipher this? Here's another example. We see apps and big companies making changes. And a lot of times, what we end up doing is looking at what other people are doing, which is really, really dangerous, because we don't know why they did it. We just sort of assume LinkedIn knows what they're doing. They probably have, like, 50 designers over there. I bet they A, B tested the hell out of that. Maybe. Or maybe they're, like, getting their free swag hoodie at a wine retreat, you know? Things like that also happen at big companies. But people watch big companies and see what they're doing. And so LinkedIn went from this primary navigation in their app of a logo and overflow menu, which you probably don't know that's what the menu is, but there's three little dots there. And they shifted over to a bottom navigation menu. Was this a good change? How do we know? Should we do that? LinkedIn did it. We should probably do it. What about when you see another big company like eBay do the opposite? They went from a bottom navigation menu to a hamburger menu. And now your mind's like, I don't know who to copy. Which one? Who more likely to have more designers in A-B test? I don't know. Hard to say. So we don't have a lot of proof. What about if you see, before, the eBay app used to have a bunch of five-star reviews. And after they made that switch, they have a bunch of one-star reviews. Does that help you? Maybe not so good. Gives you a little something to go off of, right? If their app ratings plummet when they make a particular kind of design change. That may be some evidence. What about when six months later, they go from the hamburger menu right back to that bottom navigation menu? Then what do you think? Well, maybe those guys at Lynx didn't really know what they're doing. Sometimes we're blessed by companies that actually take the time to share. And they write up stuff. They share their data. They share their thinking. Here's why we made this design change. And here's what happened. So Spotify did this. They ran the same gamut. They went from the hamburger menu down to a bottom navigation menu and a redesign recently. And a lot of their users kind of praised this on the Twitter sphere as well. But they released an article. And they talked about what they did. They released some stats too. And they said, when we made this change, we saw a 30% increase in menu item use and a 9% increase in actions overall. Drop mic, right? Is that good? Do you want your actions to go up 9%? Maybe. I don't know. For google.com, the measure is get people off the page as fast as possible. So increasing actions by 9% would be a complete failure for that particular product. And again, it's sort of evidence. Just because somebody else does it doesn't mean we necessarily should do it. Although I bet they had some sort of big party for whoever ran this project, because they had some kind of measure that actions need to go up, and they did it. So are these good things? Should we be doing these things? And I bring all this up because, just to be very, very honest with you, most of the design work I see people doing is they're looking at what other people are doing. It's generous to say getting inspiration from. It's perhaps a little bit more accurate to say borrowing from. But in most cases, they don't know why. And as I'll explain, it's dangerous for a couple of reasons. A, it could actually harm you. But B, it makes it a hell of a lot more difficult to bring all the people along that you need to bring along when you do things like major changes to the digital presence of a company. If your only argument is Facebook's doing it, you're standing on a pretty rickety ladder if anybody chooses to challenge that or ask, well, why? So my goal is to help you a little bit. And I want to kind of go behind the scenes. And we did something as part of one of my teams at Google that probably doesn't seem so controversial. But hopefully, as I walk you through it, you'll understand that it actually turned out to be a big deal. So what we did is we took an Android app, in case this was Google's social network, G+, and we added this bottom navigation menu that I showed you earlier to this app. And so a couple things. One, why talk so much about a navigation change? A navigation change is actually a really, really big deal for how a service is interpreted, right? What you see on screen tells you what you can do there, what you should do there, how the thing operates, what value it gives you. And not only does it do that, it then also allows you to do the thing that that thing is for. So the things you show on the screen about what this does and how you can use it to achieve those things is basically the entire essence of your product. So navigation changes, navigation redesigns are a really, really big deal and can have a ton of impact. And so they're worth spending a good amount of time on, as you'll see a little bit later. And the other reason why I want to talk about this is because I can go pretty deep. I can show you all the little things that we did that got to something that, at the end, maybe you're like, well, that's kind of obvious. But how did we get there, and why? Let's talk about some of the rationale behind this. And effectively, there were three really big reasons why we started going down this path. One is really wanted to focus on what is this thing good for? It may surprise some of you, but it's not clear to a lot of people what Google Plus is for. I know that's a shocker, right? But it was true. So we really wanted to communicate, what is this thing for? What's its purpose? How can you use it? And then we wanted to make sure people actually can use it and can use it easily. That's kind of the next two bullets. But the first high-level thing was to communicate the core purpose and get people in here. And what were we starting from? This is kind of what the Android app looked like at the beginning. And believe it or not, there actually is a whole bunch of navigation here. If anybody can guess where it is, it is that white bar at the top with the word home. And do you see that teeny little triangle there, that tiny little guy? If you knew that that was something that could guide you to using this app and service, and you then tapped on it, you could actually navigate around. But up front, not necessarily clear that that's what you should be doing. Now, when and if you got the sense to hit that menu, it would actually reveal all the features within the app. And when I say all the features, I mean all the features that were within the app. Five years worth of features, as a matter of fact. Does anybody use Google Photos? How many of you knew all of Google Photos was in Google Plus before we released Google Photos? OK. Three of you, cool. It was. Google Maps has this awesome location sharing feature right now. It used to be inside of Google+. So there's a lot of stuff in here. And it was very difficult for people to know what they should be doing. Because not only was all this hidden, but everything was sort of treated equally visually. Whether it was communities, or locations, or events, or photos, all this stuff was sort of listed out in the exact same way without any clear guidance around what you should or could do here. So of course, what we try to do to understand how to make sense of this is we go and get closer to the customers, Jeffrey said. And what was really neat is we were able to assemble a group of people who were very passionate and very happy using the product. People who are spending hours in there a day, constantly engaging. We call them the people who got to a happy state group. And we went to these people and we said, hey, people in a happy state, would you mind helping us get other people to a happy state? And so we created a community from them. We talked to them every now and then. And one of the things we asked the people who were in this happy state was, well, what do you use the most? Out of all this big, long list of features, what are you doing day in, day out? And so the first thing we found was there was two things in particular that they would use multiple times. And one of them was this thing called communities, which is like a group of people talking about a topic. Another thing is this thing called a collection, which is sort of like a series of posts around a topic, a series of posts around mountain biking, if you will, or artificial intelligence, what have you. So people use these two things a whole bunch of times. And of course, you can't just listen to what people tell you, because they may not know necessarily the biases they hold, or they may not necessarily think it through, or frankly, they may just lie to you, which actually happens a ton. There was a good friend of mine, Bob Moesta, who was one of the co-founders of this thing called Jobs to be Done. He always tells the story how he stumbled onto that methodology, because he just got frustrated with people lying to him. He would be doing market research for a car company. And he'd go and talk to this couple. And they're like, we're going to buy a car. He's like, oh, OK, well, what kind of car? They're like, anything but a minivan. There's never going to be a minivan. Well, maybe an SUV, or maybe we want this BMW thing over here. Three months later, he goes back to them, and they bought a minivan. And he's like, what the heck is happening? So he got super frustrated, and he made this whole methodology. But the bottom line is you can't just listen to what people tell you. It's not the full story. So we also look at quantitative data. And when we did, we saw there was actually a nice match. There was 1.2 million people joining communities a day. So not only are people telling us these things are good, I use them, but we actually see people using them. And this combination of the two data points, this quantitative versus qualitative data point, I think is critical. So does anybody know what this chart shows? I'll give you a hint. That's kilometers per hour on the vertical axis there. This is a crash in the third stage of the Tour de France based on the onboard computers of the bikers. And what you can basically see is they're biking, and everything goes to hell. But if you look at the qualitative side, You get a very different story. There's a guy walking down the road with blood coming off his leg. There's a guy in the back there literally crying because he'd been training for five years for this moment, and somebody locked pedals with him, and he fell, and it's all over. You get a very different set of information when you look at the qualitative side than when you get just the quantitative side. And so it's very, very important to bring those two things together. You can't just look at one or the other. Those two things together help you out a lot. And when you come back to this, we had a nice affinity. The other thing we did, and this is also a realization I've come to over the years, is the average user is anything but. Averages are very, very dangerous. So what we end up doing is we actually look at the extremes. We look at the people who are super active, super happy, love it. And then we talk to people who have no idea what the hell is going on. Totally on the opposite side of the coin. New people who come in and really can't figure things out. And we spend a bunch of time seeing where they were overwhelmed, what they were overwhelmed by, and what happened. And after getting kind of these different input points in these different types of groups, we ended up with a couple high-level goals. One, we want to simplify things for newcomers. And two, we want to take the things that make people happy, that make them satisfied, that they like, and bring them front and center. Just make it much more clear that that's where the good stuff is. So to do that, we did something that's a little bit more like a traditional design process. We went and built a bunch of different prototypes. We made a prototype a week, roughly. Every time we made a prototype, we went and learned in the lab. We would then tweak things, change things. And at the end of that week, we'd start again. And after about seven rounds of this type of behavioral research, what we ended up with is something that was meeting those goals we had. We thought we had a design that accomplished this. So we found new users would kind of just jump in here and start exploring right away. They would use the menu, they'd move between the tabs, and they would get oriented really quickly and easily. And our superpower users who love these features, these collections of community things, were immediately able to jump into those areas because they were front and center. So this was good. And we thought, OK, looks like something is coming together here. But in addition to simplifying and making these key actions front and center, we also had this high-level goal that many of you probably have, which is around engagement. And sometimes that gets thrown around as a dirty word. People do the wrong things for engagement, like throw banner ads at you or all the terrible things we saw before. But ultimately, I think we're building software that people should use. We would like people to use them. And so a very good metric of are you making useful software is, is anybody using it? Right? And that's why I think this metric comes up all the time around engagement. It's not this notoriously bad thing. It's I make something. If you use it, I feel good. So I would like to know if you're using it or not. And the more you use it, the gooder I feel. So how do we try and figure this out? While we were doing all of that traditional kind of usability testing and research, we were also doing something very quantitative. And what we ultimately landed on is this methodology called a survival analysis. If any of you have seen Survivor, you're probably familiar with how this works, who survives. And so what you would do is you take a big sample of people coming into your product. So we would carve off a million people who registered today. And what we would do is look at that million people who registered today, and we would see, what did they do? And what of those actions correlated with them being around later, with them surviving? And so what you can see, here's a bunch of actions we tracked. like making a comment, joining a community, following someone, getting followed. And we would see what was the biggest indicator of what made people come back the next day. And how do we get them to return the following day? And you can see the number one thing that brought people back the next day was if they followed a collection on their first day. There were those lists of topics. So if somebody found a topic that interests them and they followed it, high degree of likelihood they would come back the next day. So that was good. But then we also wanted to see what makes them stick around longer. So we changed this. And you can see my lines and dots changing here. And we said, well, what's the strongest indicator of somebody coming back three weeks later? And while following a collection is still up there, you can see joining a community was the strongest indicator of whether or not somebody comes back three weeks later. So both of these things were really useful for predicting, are people going to use this? Remember, during the other process, what we did is we found that these collections and communities, those same two features, were useful for our happy users. And so we put them down inside of this navigation menu. So what happened when we did that? what happened to how many people hit the collection screen that had a listing of all these topical pages. And you could see that little spike. People always ask, what is that? That was a test. Is anybody going to use it? Whoa, OK. And then we launched it. And we had a 600% increase in the amount of people daily hitting that page. Clearly, that's really huge. But then it also translated to a 300% increase in the amount of people who were following these collections. And so lots of people, not only did they check it out on that page, they actually went and started following these things. And we saw very similar stuff happen on the community side. You can see the amount of people who went to the community screen, and you can see the amount of people who started joining communities. Both of those things go up and to the right. And if you come back to what I just showed you a second ago, that the strongest indicator of bringing people back after the first day and the strongest indicator of bringing people back three weeks later, were those same two features that we just grew 300, 600%, what do you think happened? The answer is good things. And I wanna pause for half a second here and kind of bring up the point, like, the whole time we're doing this, we're kind of growing our confidence in the design decisions we're making. At the beginning, like, we don't really know what we're doing. But as you do some of this usability testing, you do some of the survival analysis stuff, you look at your data, you go and talk to your happy users, you see new users, whoa, managed software center, no thank you. You start gaining more and more confidence, right, that you're down the right path. Because it turned out, this design that we had before up here, with that little triangle thing, oops, with that little triangle thing, it really was out of sight. and out of mind. When we took the things that were already there, these aren't any new things, we just took the things that were already there, we figured out which things are important, we put them in here, we saw a huge impact on very critical metrics, right, the things that we cared about. So new navigation helped us simplify and focus, grew engagement, all of these are good things, but there was kind of another thing that we were going through as we were thinking about this. And I'll just bucket this under ergonomics, but it's really trying to design for the way people use technology, and in particular, form factors. While mobile time spent has been increasing tremendously over the years, the average is right around here, like about 117% across all these form factors. But time spent on bigger phones, these things that we call phablets, which I still like to make fun of, But that's been growing the most, because you've got a bigger screen. You actually spend more time on it. And if you look at where the market is heading, and you can sort of see the trajectory from two years ago to where we're ending up now, the market share of larger phones has been increasing at the expense of smaller phones and tablets in general. So when we make design changes to our products, we kind of want to know where things are going. Because you don't want that design to be done the day you release it. You want to have some future forward thinking that accounts for things like market trends. And this is why I think it's important. Three years ago, about 7% of active smartphones were 5 and 1 half to 6 inches. Three years later, it's like 43%. These things can swing really quickly. And why do we care? You probably have some sense of why we care about the size of phones. A, we care because we want to make sure things are comfortable for people. But B, we kind of have to have a sense of how are people viewing our content? Under what circumstances? Other useful stuff to know. Smartphones in the three to seven inch range, 90% of the time they're viewed in portrait mode. And those numbers go higher the bigger the phones get, and the more modern the phones get. When you get to small-sized tablets, like 7 to 9-inch screens, you can see it's less, but still the majority portrait. Once you cross that 9-inch line, then people shift to landscape as the majority use. So knowing kind of the size of these screens, how people interact with them, helps us make sure that we create comfortable software. You want to put things in the nice green zone as opposed to the owie zone up here. So we want our, as phones get more fability, we want to make sure our designs become less ouchity. So for example, primary action to check in on this app called Swarm used to be up and to the right. Now they put it down in the center middle. nice and easy, comfortable to hit when your hand is like this. So we want to be inside of this comfortable, easy to hit use. And if you come back to Apple Maps, they actually made a bunch of design adjustments that kind of account for this behavior. So once you're in direction mode, you kind of know where you're going. There's a little panel on the bottom. And you can effectively just swipe up with your thumb. You just sort of thrash at it. It flicks up. It gives you a whole bunch of information about where you're going. And then you can just sort of flop it down, and it comes right back. So it's just like quick and easy flick. Here inside of when you're looking at the directions in detail, you can also do the same thing, flip it up. And you get a whole bunch of nice ways to see the details, get the overview, turn on audio. And there's an opportunity to close it, although my animation there didn't work so well. Now, this is cool, but you have to be a little careful when you do this, because this is the Apple music redesign that came out around that same time. And what we saw was a lot of people couldn't figure out how they could shuffle their music. If you say it's behind those three dots, it's not. The way you do it is you actually have to scroll the thing up, and there's shuffle and repeat. And that's how it goes. And I'm very fond of saying you don't have to be a designer to know where there's usability problems. It's very easy to find usability problems. You just look for the Band-Aids. You know where people are hurt based on where they have bandages on. So let me show you an example of a design bandage. When the Apple support account tweets, hey, want to repeat that song? Here's an animated GIF of how to find that. That's a band-aid. Can't find how to shuffle? Here you go. So that's one band-aid you see. Then in iOS 10.2 or something like that, When you open up music, up pops a little modal. Now playing, you can swipe up to repeat, shuffle, and go next. Got it? Got it. You know what this is? Band-Aid, right? These little mobile things. And then in addition to that, not only did they put in that overlay, but they changed the buttons to be these big things that actually say the word shuffle and the word repeat. Another Band-Aid you can find. So when you see these things, you know there was problems before, but all in all, This bottom card pattern is a nice example of some of these ideas, right? Bottom aligned, comfortable for use, and accounts for where things are going. So it's one of the reasons why we kind of align towards that bottom nav as part of this process as well. OK. So, so far I've told you just a bunch of good things. We want to make it easier. We made it easier. We want to grow engagement. We grew engagement. We want to make it comfortable. We made it comfortable. And this is where most of these talks end, right? OK, thanks, bye, good luck. But what about the negative stuff? Nobody talks about the negative stuff, right? Did anything bad ever happen? What do we get wrong? You know, like Spotify, actions are up 9%. So in the interest of continuing to kind of peel back the curtain behind this process, I'm going to talk about some of the things that were bad. And the first most bad thing that we heard from people was this. Our top complaint was, hey, this thing is taking up too much space. I like to see the big pictures. I like to see the big text. And you put this bar on here. And with this Android bar and that Android bar, I'm all barred up. And we had originally wanted to make it so that when you scroll down the page, what would happen is the menus would go away, and you could actually get this nice full screen view for beautiful images like that. Just didn't get around to it. Too many other things happening. But it was in the works. It almost had made the cut. It didn't really get into the release. But it was super easy to get this out a week or two later because we just finished the work. And because it was the number one complaint, it was pretty easy to rationalize it with everybody. So that was good. And by the way, there's some challenges with this implementation too, but I won't jump into those right now. The next one was a lot harder. The second complaint we got basically consisted of lots of people emailing me, tweeting me, posting to me one particular URL. And that particular URL was to this Android developer's guideline page that we, Google, had put out, which basically says, don't use bottom tab bars. Other platforms use the bottom tab bar, but Android tabs do not use that. So literally, for months, I would wake up in the morning, and my inbox would be full of people like, hey, dumbass, why don't you go and look at your own company's design guidelines? Because apparently, you can't read. Like, I don't know, duh, like the action bar, like every other Android app. That was a very fun period of my life. So what do we do about this? This is a much tougher issue. It's not just a feature that we can push. This is something that a very large company has publicly told a whole community of people making apps for 2 billion devices to do. Much harder ship to turn. We couldn't just go and ship our own code and make this happen. So what we ended up doing is I started telling the story Internally, very similar to what I told you, I started saying, hey, we did this survival analysis stuff. We brought these features. And look at the numbers that went up and to the right. Look at this 600%. Look at this 300%. This is really working for us. Our friends at Photos, who are sitting right next door, basically said, oh, yeah, that's pretty cool. We should try that out. They tried it out. They saw similar good things happen. And they released this. And what happened is a couple more apps within the company started doing this, started seeing similar impact to us. And we worked with them. And then finally, the material design team, which is responsible for these conventions and guidelines, said, hey, you know what? This is right. We should do something about this. And they updated the Android guidelines to include a bottom navigation menu, which is now out there for apps to use. And some people were a little upset about this. How can you change this? But I like to think guidelines should be an evolving thing. If we learn something, we should continue to make it better. We shouldn't blindly hold to rules that maybe were set during different phases of technology or things like that. So learning and continually changing, I think, is a good thing, as opposed to dogmatically sticking to a rule, even in the presence of data. It's not just us in photos now. A bunch of apps have gone into this. And it's funny to see. So this is YouTube, right? YouTube in 2014 had a hamburger menu. And then in 2015, they did a top tab menu. Then in 2016, they took some of that stuff out and put in a floating action button. And then this year, they went to this bottom navigation menu. And I like this picture. in this sequence, because it just shows what most people are doing all the time. We're moving pixels around. Should I put it here? Let's put them there. Let's put them over here. What if we put it over here? And again, it comes back to having the confidence to believe in the decisions you're making. There's a million ways you can arrange the navigation in an app. Which one should you do? How many are you going to try? Where is it going to end up? So complaint number two about the Google has guidelines that say don't do this, and we did it, was averted after a multi-month process. But I think it was worth it in the end. And then complaint number three, I'll be honest with you. Complaint number three was the most emotionally challenging for me personally. Because I would receive commentary like this, thank you Bing for the translation. I brain-free spring manure G plus bottom bar for a long time now. Even the Google gallery has also been falling. At Luke W, your mom blew up. So I called my mom. I'm like, Mom, are you OK? She did not blow up. It was OK. It was kind of like a false start there for half a second. But the number three complaint we got was just people didn't like it. This stupid gray bar at the bottom is a horrible thing. When are you killing the ugly black bar menu? It's on and on and on like this. And I have to admit, it is puzzling to me in some ways just how much passion people have about app navigation menus I put little dots on there so I don't offend anyone. For a while, there was a trending hashtag on Google Plus that was, does Luke get fired yet? And then they started replacing fired with other adjectives, which I'll leave to your imagination to figure out what those could be. And you know what? I'll be honest with you. This kind of sucks, right? Totally sucks to be told your mom's blowing up and you're brain-free, you're spraying manure, and I'm not even gonna read the last one, right? Doesn't make you feel good, does it? But how do you keep going, and why do you keep going? What if I was just like, well, Facebook did it. Well, how quickly could I back off from that position? The only rationale I had for making this bottom navigation menu change is because I saw LinkedIn did it, right? Well, Spotify, 9% actions, that's why. Really flimsy construct to stand on, right? But what if instead I was spending a whole bunch of time with people who are in a happy state? I've run survival analyses to see the actions that keep people around. I've seen the metrics go up. I've seen that whole picture, and I've been part of that whole process. How confident do you think I feel at that point? And how much more willing am I to wake up in the morning and read this again and be like, yeah, you know, I understand, but I'm still going to do this. I still know it's the right thing to do. And by the way, I should say, everything's a learning opportunity. So did anybody notice a pattern kind of where a lot of these comments are coming from? You want to know what happened? In a number of Asian markets, there's a lot of cheap Android tablet use. And people use Google Plus on there. And what happened with these tablets that are kind of wide, when we added the bottom bar and it was translated into character-based languages, The text was really small. It was just like two characters for each thing. So what people would get is this black bar on the bottom. And in the middle was like four little icons of like two words. And there's just this big spacing on the sides. And no wonder they're pissed off and telling me it's horrible and foolish and looks bad. So even in the darkest corners of the Trollosphere, there may be an insight lurking. So. At this point, I think it's worth remembering this quote. This is from the first Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. He actually ended up winning it three times in a row, Herbert Swope. And he says, I can't tell you how to be successful, but I can tell you how to fail, which is try to make everybody happy. And I think this is a really important thing that we forget a bunch of times. Right? We're so focused on trying to make everybody OK with the changes that we're making that sometimes we ignore the fact that when somebody really hates what you're doing, it's a sign they care. Why am I getting all these emails? Because people are actually passionate about it. They're trying to use the thing. If nobody emailed me about it, then I would be really concerned. Because that means no one gives a rat's patooey. When you've got really happy people or really angry people, that's a good thing. When you get no reaction whatsoever, that's a dangerous thing. The other thing is the types of changes that we're trying to make, changes that are really impactful, changes that move things 600%, 300%, those are usually big, meaty changes. They're not like changing the button from green to yellow or whatever, right? We've come up with a methodology of A-B testing to take arguments out of things. Because you make these tiny little things, oh, that performed a little bit better. OK, it performed better. We're all good. And we don't take these big jumps. We don't make harder steps, things that actually rustle some feathers, or frankly, irk people. And to come back to a tech quote So this is a tech talk, not one about reporting. This is Mr. Steven Sinofsky, who ran Windows for a long time. He's now a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. And what he says here is, products without a point of view have no point. And I like this because it kind of references the fact you need a compass. You need a direction to be going. And how do you tune your compass? How do you figure out the direction you should go? All these kind of processes that I walked you through, that iteration, that constant learning, that closeness to the customer, tunes your compass so that your point of view is sailing your ship in the right direction. And I think it matters a ton to get that right. The other point I'd like to make here is, and it comes back to what I was saying about the A-B testing, I hear a lot of people using the phrase data-driven decision-making. Have any of you heard that? We're a data-driven company. Very dangerous. Data shouldn't make the decisions for you. People should make decisions for you. And so data-informed, I think, is a great thing to aspire to be. We want to be a data-informed decision-making company. But data-driven, eh, quite challenging. especially when it comes time to stand up around big changes and things that may not be as popular. And so I think this point of view applies to things that may seem trivial or may seem small. I've often had conversations with people that say things to me like, hey, Luke, you did all that work for such an obvious design change? You did all that work just to make a bottom tab bar? Well, yeah. I did. And I think it was worth it. Not only do I think it was worth it, I think it was really, really worth it. And when you get that kind of question, I actually think it's a really positive indicator that you're doing something right. Such an obvious design change. Is it worth it? Is all that work and effort for something that feels so obvious worth the effort? Well, you tell me. So to wrap this up, and maybe I'll have time for a question or two if I'm lucky, we talked about a couple things. One, design is obvious in retrospect. But in order to reveal that obviousness, in order to go on that journey and know which path is illuminated, where is the light shining, where should you go, you've got to go through this process. You can't just copy patterns. And to do that, you want to get as close to insights as possible. And the more, the merrier. Another common question is, should I do usability testing, or should I do A-B testing, or should I do ethnographic field research? Sure. Do whatever. The more you learn, the better off you are. When it comes time to either make or defend that decision, the more confident you'll feel. And that, again, to come back to my point, you can't just look at the quantitative or the qualitative. You want to at least look at both sides. And last but not least, we just talked about it. No matter how data informed you are and how right you think you are, you're not going to please everybody. That's OK. That's why you have a point of view, a compass. And things that are impactful aren't always popular with everyone. And that's OK. You can piss some people off. I'll leave you with that. I think I left time for two questions. Is that right, Toby, or not at all? OK. I got it. There's mics in the aisles. If you want to ask a question, yay. If you want to eat lunch, yay. No one's rushing to the mic, so eat some lunch. I'll hang out up here and talk to people who would like to talk. Thanks.", "start": 5.718, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}], "transcriptByParagraphs": [{"end": 0, "text": "Yeah, so depressing how few mosaic people are left. It's kind of like when you get old, all your friends start to die off. It's like the news gets more and more depressing. Prince, David Bowie, mosaic users. Yeah. So anyway, since it's a little bit before lunch, you may be starting to get a bit tired. I have a way of awakening you, I hope. Let's see if it works. Okay, should we make that louder? Okay, let's try that a little bit louder, because there's a part after that that's even better. All right, is it cranked? All right, Denver. Here it comes. And thank you very much.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So, a couple years ago, We had a lawsuit in the tech industry. It was actually the biggest patent lawsuit in the technology industry to date. There was $2 billion under contention. And it made all the press that you'd expect. People were talking about it around the world. Because what happened was it was Apple suing Samsung over the design of the iPhone. All right, and you all are probably familiar with the iPhone. It's the one on the right or left. I think it's the one on the left. And what happened was Apple said, hey, Samsung, you're copying. You're infringing on our patents.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think they had like three utility patents, four design patents or something like that for this device. But there was one patent in particular that formed the basis of this lawsuit for why Apple took a $2 billion effort against Samsung. And it was something that literally had a picture that just looked like this. It was just this little rectangle. And as design patents are, they're basically just pictures. There's very few words. And Apple's design patent had very, very few words. And I have to read from my screen so I get the lawyer speak correct.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It said, this patent covers this smartphone and its ornamental design substantially as shown and described. That's all it said. And what you saw was just kind of this black rectangle. And it was this design that Samsung called in a whole bunch of expert witnesses. They sort of paraded a whole bunch of them through. And what they argued was, you can't protect this. This is not only something that we're not going to pay any money for, but this patent shouldn't be valid. And why did they say that? They said, because it's so obvious. It's such an obvious design. It's just a rectangle.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Anybody could have gotten there eventually. How can you protect something that is so inevitable, so obvious, such a kind of design that anyone can get to? But if we go back now about 10 years and we look at the introduction of this obvious product, were things really as obvious back then as they claimed about what this would become? Because when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, for those of you that remember, he basically said it was three different things.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So of the three things that came to create this device, one was the iPod, the other one was the phone, and the third one was the internet communicator. We all laugh. Every time I say that now, people laugh. But that's literally what they called it, the internet communicator. And it was the combination of these three things together that was supposed to create this next generation device that was going to leapfrog the devices that were out there. Because if you remember, there actually were smartphones at the time of this.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "They just looked like BlackBerrys, Motorola Q thing, those sorts of devices. So there was like 60 million of those sold a year at the time. But the modern mobile smartphone started off as a combination of these three things. So let's look at it. iPod was this original concept that Apple had a lot of success with of storing a thousand songs in your pocket. You put all these songs on this little iPod, you carry them around with you, and you basically download your music and listen to it anywhere. And it had a pretty good run.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So if we look at what the growth rates of song download on iTunes looked like. Back in 2006, when this device came out, they were growing at something like 60%. Then they grew at 40%, and now we have hit negative growth. So the 1,000 songs in your pocket really didn't pan out to be as transformational as maybe people at the time thought. Very compelling at the time, but has quite clearly petered off since then. So what about the phone part? Maybe the phone was the special sauce that merited this $2 billion lawsuit.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And again, if you look at the phone over the years, clearly a lot of these devices have made their way into our pockets. But if you look at the amount of voice data that's happening, it's pretty much just stayed flat. Despite more and more of these devices entering the market, all the time. The amount that we spend talking on them via phones is not really changing. In fact, it's interesting. If you go and ask people, how many times do you actually make a voice call on your smartphone per week? This is actually per week.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And about five years ago or so, almost everybody was taking a voice call at least once per week. Now, 30% of people don't even take a call once a week. I'm one of those people, by the way. If my phone rings, what is this? Kind of freaks me out. So not only does data show it from a quantitative perspective, but also when you talk to people, you find that the same thing is true. So the phone didn't really seem to be the thing that merited this $2 billion lawsuit.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So what happens if we then look at the internet communicator And the funny thing about the internet communicator, it was the thing that got the least amount of time during that original keynote. It was a really brief section where they talked about this thing. But if you go back to my voice versus data chart, and now instead of only showing voice information, I show the actual data. Here we go. You can see that actually turned out to be a very, very big thing. So the big win out of this was the internet communicator piece.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And having this personal computer in our pockets connected to the internet has given birth to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of ideas, not the least of which is streaming music. So it's not that Apple was necessarily wrong that we like to have music in our pockets. It's just that iPod's structure of downloading songs actually has, over time, given way to more of an internet communicator-based means of listening to music through streaming. And if you compare where people are making money, you can see music streaming has surpassed music downloads.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And in fact, music streaming is now actually some substantial portion of overall music revenue. I think within the year, it's going to cross the 50% mark and become the dominant way by which people make money off of music. So it's not that the songs were wrong. It's just that they were all about the internet communicator. And so when I look at this. And I kind of come back to that original introduction. I see these three things, and I say to myself, you know what? One out of three ain't too bad. But it's also an interesting story in terms of evolution and iteration.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "We tend to put a lot of credit in the original introduction of things and getting it all right at the same time. And even the most popular product in terms of scale, the smartphone, really took a while to find its course. It wasn't immediately clear what that thing was good for. A similar story is going on with smartwatches and a lot of other technology that we have in our lives. There's a period where you kind of have to keep with it and figure out what it's good for. So anyway, not a lot necessarily obvious at launch, right? A lot had to be learned.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But to come back to this Apple versus Samsung thing, we heard Samsung's side of the argument. Design is inevitable. Anybody would have come up with it over time. It's super obvious. What did Apple argue? What was their side of the coin? They said, obvious? Inevitable? Are you freaking kidding me? Do you have any idea how many prototypes we made over the five years that we locked people in the basement to create this thing? They didn't see their families.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "They couldn't go home on weekends because we're churning through so many prototypes and form factors to get to what you now call obvious. There's a huge amount of variances, refinement, and painstaking work to get to this thing. that you now see in front of you. In fact, let's zoom in and look at a whole bunch of these things together. They said no design detail was immune from this process, even very simple things, stuff that seemed like it would be pretty clear, like the hardware button. They had 50 different refinements of that hardware button. So span that out over five years.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "That's like almost every month is another hardware button review. There you go again. Let's look at it one more time. And it's like 10 hardware button refinements per year. It's pretty brutal. So their core thesis was what seems obvious now clearly was not. Took many years of iteration, lots and lots of prototypes, lots and lots of hardware reviews. But in the end, yeah, we did get to something that feels inevitable. And kind of the statement that comes to mind is design is only obvious in retrospect.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's after you've gone through all that hard work, and you've tried all these things that don't work, and eventually you've gotten to the thing that does work, that's where it feels clear. That's where it feels focused. That's where it feels, if I can use the word, right. So that sounds good. We all want to create these obvious designs. If it's only obvious in retrospect that something is good or inevitable, how do you figure it out along the way? How do you create these kinds of obvious designs?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, sticking with Apple for half a second, we can go back to looking at the release of Maps on iOS. When iOS 10 came out, they did a big redesign of iOS Maps. And one of the things that happened with the original Maps release, at least for Apple, they got a lot of slack for this. Do you remember why? It would kind of drive you into a lake when you're trying to go home. It would label ancient cathedrals as Burger Kings. Does anybody remember this? Mapgate or whatever, they just throw gate at the end of everything now. So this was a really maligned release for them.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Caused them a ton of headaches, created real problems, and actually, in some cases, endangered people. One operating system ago, they redesigned maps completely, and they went from that old version that had stuck around for a couple years to a totally redesigned version. And now, if you look at the conversations people have about Apple Maps, it's completely flipped. In fact, these things are universally praised. So just as a small example here, so much better, truly confusing before. The new Apple Maps are a breath of fresh air in the Apple ecosystem.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I believe that's a nerd compliment, so I think it's good. Now, if you care about obviousness and simplicity in design, you probably get curious when something that had a lot of problems before was characterized as confusing, hard to use, just overall bad, to now people love it and think it's great. Well, what did they change? How did they make that transition? from difficult and confusing to fresh breath of air. And so we can look at some of the changes that happened. And we can take what people in the industry call a heuristic evaluation.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "A heuristic evaluation is basically, I know something about design. I'll look at it and tell you what I think based on my experience, things I've seen, what have you. And so looking at it that way, we can kind of identify some of these reasons. And it also helps in a heuristic evaluation if you have some core use cases, or you kind of can evaluate against what people are trying to do. That's really useful. So one key use case for Maps is going somewhere, getting directions. So the way you would do that before in Maps, you would have to tap Search to start. That's a little weird.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "In the new version, however, there is a field that says, where do you want to go? What do you think is more obvious? Probably the thing that says, where do you want to go, perhaps. Another example. In the previous version of Maps, the way you actually start directions is you hit that blue text on screen there, the one that's a tiny bit more bluish and bolder. See that one? route, not to be confused with all the other blue text on there. In the redesigned version, you have this giant thing that looks like a touchable element. We in the industry call it a button.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You may have forgotten what those look like, but that's what they are. And you can see it says directions, 30 minute drive. There's a big kind of strong visual contrast, to use the language of design, right? Visual contrast, affordance. Affordance looks like something you can tap. Strong visual contrast makes something pop up. So you want a primary action that's really bold and noticeable. And clearly, big difference between this before and after view, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So we can say maybe these primary actions, maybe these clear call to actions, all these things are adding up And in fact, net-net, there was a ton of design changes. Many of them likely contributed to these positive feelings. So if we look before, there was a separation between where you're going and how you're going to get there. And in the new version, there's this really clear, to Charleston Road, from my location, 30 minutes, fastest route, go. And you've got the drive, walk, transit options right there, as opposed to separated.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And if you show these to two people and you ask, which one's more obvious? Guess which one they're going to pick. They'll be, duh. Well, if it's so duh, why did that design A, get made, B, live on for at least three or four years? So it's not necessarily so obvious at the time how this looks. But again, strong visual contrast, all these things. So many things kind of came together. But do we really know which ones were the important ones? Was it the contrast? Was it the button shape? Was it the copy that we inserted in there? What helped make a good design? How do we know?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "We want to make great designs. How can we decipher this? Here's another example. We see apps and big companies making changes. And a lot of times, what we end up doing is looking at what other people are doing, which is really, really dangerous, because we don't know why they did it. We just sort of assume LinkedIn knows what they're doing. They probably have, like, 50 designers over there. I bet they A, B tested the hell out of that. Maybe. Or maybe they're, like, getting their free swag hoodie at a wine retreat, you know? Things like that also happen at big companies.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But people watch big companies and see what they're doing. And so LinkedIn went from this primary navigation in their app of a logo and overflow menu, which you probably don't know that's what the menu is, but there's three little dots there. And they shifted over to a bottom navigation menu. Was this a good change? How do we know? Should we do that? LinkedIn did it. We should probably do it. What about when you see another big company like eBay do the opposite? They went from a bottom navigation menu to a hamburger menu. And now your mind's like, I don't know who to copy.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Which one? Who more likely to have more designers in A-B test? I don't know. Hard to say. So we don't have a lot of proof. What about if you see, before, the eBay app used to have a bunch of five-star reviews. And after they made that switch, they have a bunch of one-star reviews. Does that help you? Maybe not so good. Gives you a little something to go off of, right? If their app ratings plummet when they make a particular kind of design change. That may be some evidence.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "What about when six months later, they go from the hamburger menu right back to that bottom navigation menu? Then what do you think? Well, maybe those guys at Lynx didn't really know what they're doing. Sometimes we're blessed by companies that actually take the time to share. And they write up stuff. They share their data. They share their thinking. Here's why we made this design change. And here's what happened. So Spotify did this. They ran the same gamut. They went from the hamburger menu down to a bottom navigation menu and a redesign recently.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And a lot of their users kind of praised this on the Twitter sphere as well. But they released an article. And they talked about what they did. They released some stats too. And they said, when we made this change, we saw a 30% increase in menu item use and a 9% increase in actions overall. Drop mic, right? Is that good? Do you want your actions to go up 9%? Maybe. I don't know. For google.com, the measure is get people off the page as fast as possible. So increasing actions by 9% would be a complete failure for that particular product. And again, it's sort of evidence.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Just because somebody else does it doesn't mean we necessarily should do it. Although I bet they had some sort of big party for whoever ran this project, because they had some kind of measure that actions need to go up, and they did it. So are these good things? Should we be doing these things? And I bring all this up because, just to be very, very honest with you, most of the design work I see people doing is they're looking at what other people are doing. It's generous to say getting inspiration from. It's perhaps a little bit more accurate to say borrowing from.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But in most cases, they don't know why. And as I'll explain, it's dangerous for a couple of reasons. A, it could actually harm you. But B, it makes it a hell of a lot more difficult to bring all the people along that you need to bring along when you do things like major changes to the digital presence of a company. If your only argument is Facebook's doing it, you're standing on a pretty rickety ladder if anybody chooses to challenge that or ask, well, why? So my goal is to help you a little bit. And I want to kind of go behind the scenes.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And we did something as part of one of my teams at Google that probably doesn't seem so controversial. But hopefully, as I walk you through it, you'll understand that it actually turned out to be a big deal. So what we did is we took an Android app, in case this was Google's social network, G+, and we added this bottom navigation menu that I showed you earlier to this app. And so a couple things. One, why talk so much about a navigation change? A navigation change is actually a really, really big deal for how a service is interpreted, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "What you see on screen tells you what you can do there, what you should do there, how the thing operates, what value it gives you. And not only does it do that, it then also allows you to do the thing that that thing is for. So the things you show on the screen about what this does and how you can use it to achieve those things is basically the entire essence of your product. So navigation changes, navigation redesigns are a really, really big deal and can have a ton of impact. And so they're worth spending a good amount of time on, as you'll see a little bit later.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And the other reason why I want to talk about this is because I can go pretty deep. I can show you all the little things that we did that got to something that, at the end, maybe you're like, well, that's kind of obvious. But how did we get there, and why? Let's talk about some of the rationale behind this. And effectively, there were three really big reasons why we started going down this path. One is really wanted to focus on what is this thing good for? It may surprise some of you, but it's not clear to a lot of people what Google Plus is for. I know that's a shocker, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But it was true. So we really wanted to communicate, what is this thing for? What's its purpose? How can you use it? And then we wanted to make sure people actually can use it and can use it easily. That's kind of the next two bullets. But the first high-level thing was to communicate the core purpose and get people in here. And what were we starting from? This is kind of what the Android app looked like at the beginning. And believe it or not, there actually is a whole bunch of navigation here. If anybody can guess where it is, it is that white bar at the top with the word home.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And do you see that teeny little triangle there, that tiny little guy? If you knew that that was something that could guide you to using this app and service, and you then tapped on it, you could actually navigate around. But up front, not necessarily clear that that's what you should be doing. Now, when and if you got the sense to hit that menu, it would actually reveal all the features within the app. And when I say all the features, I mean all the features that were within the app. Five years worth of features, as a matter of fact. Does anybody use Google Photos?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "How many of you knew all of Google Photos was in Google Plus before we released Google Photos? OK. Three of you, cool. It was. Google Maps has this awesome location sharing feature right now. It used to be inside of Google+. So there's a lot of stuff in here. And it was very difficult for people to know what they should be doing. Because not only was all this hidden, but everything was sort of treated equally visually.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Whether it was communities, or locations, or events, or photos, all this stuff was sort of listed out in the exact same way without any clear guidance around what you should or could do here. So of course, what we try to do to understand how to make sense of this is we go and get closer to the customers, Jeffrey said. And what was really neat is we were able to assemble a group of people who were very passionate and very happy using the product. People who are spending hours in there a day, constantly engaging. We call them the people who got to a happy state group.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And we went to these people and we said, hey, people in a happy state, would you mind helping us get other people to a happy state? And so we created a community from them. We talked to them every now and then. And one of the things we asked the people who were in this happy state was, well, what do you use the most? Out of all this big, long list of features, what are you doing day in, day out? And so the first thing we found was there was two things in particular that they would use multiple times.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And one of them was this thing called communities, which is like a group of people talking about a topic. Another thing is this thing called a collection, which is sort of like a series of posts around a topic, a series of posts around mountain biking, if you will, or artificial intelligence, what have you. So people use these two things a whole bunch of times.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And of course, you can't just listen to what people tell you, because they may not know necessarily the biases they hold, or they may not necessarily think it through, or frankly, they may just lie to you, which actually happens a ton. There was a good friend of mine, Bob Moesta, who was one of the co-founders of this thing called Jobs to be Done. He always tells the story how he stumbled onto that methodology, because he just got frustrated with people lying to him. He would be doing market research for a car company. And he'd go and talk to this couple.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And they're like, we're going to buy a car. He's like, oh, OK, well, what kind of car? They're like, anything but a minivan. There's never going to be a minivan. Well, maybe an SUV, or maybe we want this BMW thing over here. Three months later, he goes back to them, and they bought a minivan. And he's like, what the heck is happening? So he got super frustrated, and he made this whole methodology. But the bottom line is you can't just listen to what people tell you. It's not the full story. So we also look at quantitative data.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And when we did, we saw there was actually a nice match. There was 1.2 million people joining communities a day. So not only are people telling us these things are good, I use them, but we actually see people using them. And this combination of the two data points, this quantitative versus qualitative data point, I think is critical. So does anybody know what this chart shows? I'll give you a hint. That's kilometers per hour on the vertical axis there. This is a crash in the third stage of the Tour de France based on the onboard computers of the bikers.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And what you can basically see is they're biking, and everything goes to hell. But if you look at the qualitative side, You get a very different story. There's a guy walking down the road with blood coming off his leg. There's a guy in the back there literally crying because he'd been training for five years for this moment, and somebody locked pedals with him, and he fell, and it's all over. You get a very different set of information when you look at the qualitative side than when you get just the quantitative side. And so it's very, very important to bring those two things together.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "You can't just look at one or the other. Those two things together help you out a lot. And when you come back to this, we had a nice affinity. The other thing we did, and this is also a realization I've come to over the years, is the average user is anything but. Averages are very, very dangerous. So what we end up doing is we actually look at the extremes. We look at the people who are super active, super happy, love it. And then we talk to people who have no idea what the hell is going on. Totally on the opposite side of the coin.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "New people who come in and really can't figure things out. And we spend a bunch of time seeing where they were overwhelmed, what they were overwhelmed by, and what happened. And after getting kind of these different input points in these different types of groups, we ended up with a couple high-level goals. One, we want to simplify things for newcomers. And two, we want to take the things that make people happy, that make them satisfied, that they like, and bring them front and center. Just make it much more clear that that's where the good stuff is.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So to do that, we did something that's a little bit more like a traditional design process. We went and built a bunch of different prototypes. We made a prototype a week, roughly. Every time we made a prototype, we went and learned in the lab. We would then tweak things, change things. And at the end of that week, we'd start again. And after about seven rounds of this type of behavioral research, what we ended up with is something that was meeting those goals we had. We thought we had a design that accomplished this.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So we found new users would kind of just jump in here and start exploring right away. They would use the menu, they'd move between the tabs, and they would get oriented really quickly and easily. And our superpower users who love these features, these collections of community things, were immediately able to jump into those areas because they were front and center. So this was good. And we thought, OK, looks like something is coming together here.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But in addition to simplifying and making these key actions front and center, we also had this high-level goal that many of you probably have, which is around engagement. And sometimes that gets thrown around as a dirty word. People do the wrong things for engagement, like throw banner ads at you or all the terrible things we saw before. But ultimately, I think we're building software that people should use. We would like people to use them. And so a very good metric of are you making useful software is, is anybody using it? Right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And that's why I think this metric comes up all the time around engagement. It's not this notoriously bad thing. It's I make something. If you use it, I feel good. So I would like to know if you're using it or not. And the more you use it, the gooder I feel. So how do we try and figure this out? While we were doing all of that traditional kind of usability testing and research, we were also doing something very quantitative. And what we ultimately landed on is this methodology called a survival analysis.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "If any of you have seen Survivor, you're probably familiar with how this works, who survives. And so what you would do is you take a big sample of people coming into your product. So we would carve off a million people who registered today. And what we would do is look at that million people who registered today, and we would see, what did they do? And what of those actions correlated with them being around later, with them surviving? And so what you can see, here's a bunch of actions we tracked. like making a comment, joining a community, following someone, getting followed.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And we would see what was the biggest indicator of what made people come back the next day. And how do we get them to return the following day? And you can see the number one thing that brought people back the next day was if they followed a collection on their first day. There were those lists of topics. So if somebody found a topic that interests them and they followed it, high degree of likelihood they would come back the next day. So that was good. But then we also wanted to see what makes them stick around longer. So we changed this.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And you can see my lines and dots changing here. And we said, well, what's the strongest indicator of somebody coming back three weeks later? And while following a collection is still up there, you can see joining a community was the strongest indicator of whether or not somebody comes back three weeks later. So both of these things were really useful for predicting, are people going to use this? Remember, during the other process, what we did is we found that these collections and communities, those same two features, were useful for our happy users.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And so we put them down inside of this navigation menu. So what happened when we did that? what happened to how many people hit the collection screen that had a listing of all these topical pages. And you could see that little spike. People always ask, what is that? That was a test. Is anybody going to use it? Whoa, OK. And then we launched it. And we had a 600% increase in the amount of people daily hitting that page. Clearly, that's really huge. But then it also translated to a 300% increase in the amount of people who were following these collections.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And so lots of people, not only did they check it out on that page, they actually went and started following these things. And we saw very similar stuff happen on the community side. You can see the amount of people who went to the community screen, and you can see the amount of people who started joining communities. Both of those things go up and to the right.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And if you come back to what I just showed you a second ago, that the strongest indicator of bringing people back after the first day and the strongest indicator of bringing people back three weeks later, were those same two features that we just grew 300, 600%, what do you think happened? The answer is good things. And I wanna pause for half a second here and kind of bring up the point, like, the whole time we're doing this, we're kind of growing our confidence in the design decisions we're making. At the beginning, like, we don't really know what we're doing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But as you do some of this usability testing, you do some of the survival analysis stuff, you look at your data, you go and talk to your happy users, you see new users, whoa, managed software center, no thank you. You start gaining more and more confidence, right, that you're down the right path. Because it turned out, this design that we had before up here, with that little triangle thing, oops, with that little triangle thing, it really was out of sight. and out of mind.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "When we took the things that were already there, these aren't any new things, we just took the things that were already there, we figured out which things are important, we put them in here, we saw a huge impact on very critical metrics, right, the things that we cared about. So new navigation helped us simplify and focus, grew engagement, all of these are good things, but there was kind of another thing that we were going through as we were thinking about this.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I'll just bucket this under ergonomics, but it's really trying to design for the way people use technology, and in particular, form factors. While mobile time spent has been increasing tremendously over the years, the average is right around here, like about 117% across all these form factors. But time spent on bigger phones, these things that we call phablets, which I still like to make fun of, But that's been growing the most, because you've got a bigger screen. You actually spend more time on it.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And if you look at where the market is heading, and you can sort of see the trajectory from two years ago to where we're ending up now, the market share of larger phones has been increasing at the expense of smaller phones and tablets in general. So when we make design changes to our products, we kind of want to know where things are going. Because you don't want that design to be done the day you release it. You want to have some future forward thinking that accounts for things like market trends. And this is why I think it's important.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Three years ago, about 7% of active smartphones were 5 and 1 half to 6 inches. Three years later, it's like 43%. These things can swing really quickly. And why do we care? You probably have some sense of why we care about the size of phones. A, we care because we want to make sure things are comfortable for people. But B, we kind of have to have a sense of how are people viewing our content? Under what circumstances? Other useful stuff to know. Smartphones in the three to seven inch range, 90% of the time they're viewed in portrait mode.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And those numbers go higher the bigger the phones get, and the more modern the phones get. When you get to small-sized tablets, like 7 to 9-inch screens, you can see it's less, but still the majority portrait. Once you cross that 9-inch line, then people shift to landscape as the majority use. So knowing kind of the size of these screens, how people interact with them, helps us make sure that we create comfortable software. You want to put things in the nice green zone as opposed to the owie zone up here.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So we want our, as phones get more fability, we want to make sure our designs become less ouchity. So for example, primary action to check in on this app called Swarm used to be up and to the right. Now they put it down in the center middle. nice and easy, comfortable to hit when your hand is like this. So we want to be inside of this comfortable, easy to hit use. And if you come back to Apple Maps, they actually made a bunch of design adjustments that kind of account for this behavior. So once you're in direction mode, you kind of know where you're going.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "There's a little panel on the bottom. And you can effectively just swipe up with your thumb. You just sort of thrash at it. It flicks up. It gives you a whole bunch of information about where you're going. And then you can just sort of flop it down, and it comes right back. So it's just like quick and easy flick. Here inside of when you're looking at the directions in detail, you can also do the same thing, flip it up. And you get a whole bunch of nice ways to see the details, get the overview, turn on audio.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And there's an opportunity to close it, although my animation there didn't work so well. Now, this is cool, but you have to be a little careful when you do this, because this is the Apple music redesign that came out around that same time. And what we saw was a lot of people couldn't figure out how they could shuffle their music. If you say it's behind those three dots, it's not. The way you do it is you actually have to scroll the thing up, and there's shuffle and repeat. And that's how it goes.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I'm very fond of saying you don't have to be a designer to know where there's usability problems. It's very easy to find usability problems. You just look for the Band-Aids. You know where people are hurt based on where they have bandages on. So let me show you an example of a design bandage. When the Apple support account tweets, hey, want to repeat that song? Here's an animated GIF of how to find that. That's a band-aid. Can't find how to shuffle? Here you go. So that's one band-aid you see.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Then in iOS 10.2 or something like that, When you open up music, up pops a little modal. Now playing, you can swipe up to repeat, shuffle, and go next. Got it? Got it. You know what this is? Band-Aid, right? These little mobile things. And then in addition to that, not only did they put in that overlay, but they changed the buttons to be these big things that actually say the word shuffle and the word repeat. Another Band-Aid you can find.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So when you see these things, you know there was problems before, but all in all, This bottom card pattern is a nice example of some of these ideas, right? Bottom aligned, comfortable for use, and accounts for where things are going. So it's one of the reasons why we kind of align towards that bottom nav as part of this process as well. OK. So, so far I've told you just a bunch of good things. We want to make it easier. We made it easier. We want to grow engagement. We grew engagement. We want to make it comfortable. We made it comfortable.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And this is where most of these talks end, right? OK, thanks, bye, good luck. But what about the negative stuff? Nobody talks about the negative stuff, right? Did anything bad ever happen? What do we get wrong? You know, like Spotify, actions are up 9%. So in the interest of continuing to kind of peel back the curtain behind this process, I'm going to talk about some of the things that were bad. And the first most bad thing that we heard from people was this. Our top complaint was, hey, this thing is taking up too much space. I like to see the big pictures.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I like to see the big text. And you put this bar on here. And with this Android bar and that Android bar, I'm all barred up. And we had originally wanted to make it so that when you scroll down the page, what would happen is the menus would go away, and you could actually get this nice full screen view for beautiful images like that. Just didn't get around to it. Too many other things happening. But it was in the works. It almost had made the cut. It didn't really get into the release. But it was super easy to get this out a week or two later because we just finished the work.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And because it was the number one complaint, it was pretty easy to rationalize it with everybody. So that was good. And by the way, there's some challenges with this implementation too, but I won't jump into those right now. The next one was a lot harder. The second complaint we got basically consisted of lots of people emailing me, tweeting me, posting to me one particular URL. And that particular URL was to this Android developer's guideline page that we, Google, had put out, which basically says, don't use bottom tab bars.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Other platforms use the bottom tab bar, but Android tabs do not use that. So literally, for months, I would wake up in the morning, and my inbox would be full of people like, hey, dumbass, why don't you go and look at your own company's design guidelines? Because apparently, you can't read. Like, I don't know, duh, like the action bar, like every other Android app. That was a very fun period of my life. So what do we do about this? This is a much tougher issue. It's not just a feature that we can push.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "This is something that a very large company has publicly told a whole community of people making apps for 2 billion devices to do. Much harder ship to turn. We couldn't just go and ship our own code and make this happen. So what we ended up doing is I started telling the story Internally, very similar to what I told you, I started saying, hey, we did this survival analysis stuff. We brought these features. And look at the numbers that went up and to the right. Look at this 600%. Look at this 300%. This is really working for us.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Our friends at Photos, who are sitting right next door, basically said, oh, yeah, that's pretty cool. We should try that out. They tried it out. They saw similar good things happen. And they released this. And what happened is a couple more apps within the company started doing this, started seeing similar impact to us. And we worked with them. And then finally, the material design team, which is responsible for these conventions and guidelines, said, hey, you know what? This is right. We should do something about this.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And they updated the Android guidelines to include a bottom navigation menu, which is now out there for apps to use. And some people were a little upset about this. How can you change this? But I like to think guidelines should be an evolving thing. If we learn something, we should continue to make it better. We shouldn't blindly hold to rules that maybe were set during different phases of technology or things like that. So learning and continually changing, I think, is a good thing, as opposed to dogmatically sticking to a rule, even in the presence of data.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "It's not just us in photos now. A bunch of apps have gone into this. And it's funny to see. So this is YouTube, right? YouTube in 2014 had a hamburger menu. And then in 2015, they did a top tab menu. Then in 2016, they took some of that stuff out and put in a floating action button. And then this year, they went to this bottom navigation menu. And I like this picture. in this sequence, because it just shows what most people are doing all the time. We're moving pixels around. Should I put it here? Let's put them there. Let's put them over here. What if we put it over here?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And again, it comes back to having the confidence to believe in the decisions you're making. There's a million ways you can arrange the navigation in an app. Which one should you do? How many are you going to try? Where is it going to end up? So complaint number two about the Google has guidelines that say don't do this, and we did it, was averted after a multi-month process. But I think it was worth it in the end. And then complaint number three, I'll be honest with you. Complaint number three was the most emotionally challenging for me personally.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Because I would receive commentary like this, thank you Bing for the translation. I brain-free spring manure G plus bottom bar for a long time now. Even the Google gallery has also been falling. At Luke W, your mom blew up. So I called my mom. I'm like, Mom, are you OK? She did not blow up. It was OK. It was kind of like a false start there for half a second. But the number three complaint we got was just people didn't like it. This stupid gray bar at the bottom is a horrible thing. When are you killing the ugly black bar menu? It's on and on and on like this.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I have to admit, it is puzzling to me in some ways just how much passion people have about app navigation menus I put little dots on there so I don't offend anyone. For a while, there was a trending hashtag on Google Plus that was, does Luke get fired yet? And then they started replacing fired with other adjectives, which I'll leave to your imagination to figure out what those could be. And you know what? I'll be honest with you. This kind of sucks, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Totally sucks to be told your mom's blowing up and you're brain-free, you're spraying manure, and I'm not even gonna read the last one, right? Doesn't make you feel good, does it? But how do you keep going, and why do you keep going? What if I was just like, well, Facebook did it. Well, how quickly could I back off from that position? The only rationale I had for making this bottom navigation menu change is because I saw LinkedIn did it, right? Well, Spotify, 9% actions, that's why. Really flimsy construct to stand on, right?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But what if instead I was spending a whole bunch of time with people who are in a happy state? I've run survival analyses to see the actions that keep people around. I've seen the metrics go up. I've seen that whole picture, and I've been part of that whole process. How confident do you think I feel at that point? And how much more willing am I to wake up in the morning and read this again and be like, yeah, you know, I understand, but I'm still going to do this. I still know it's the right thing to do. And by the way, I should say, everything's a learning opportunity.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "So did anybody notice a pattern kind of where a lot of these comments are coming from? You want to know what happened? In a number of Asian markets, there's a lot of cheap Android tablet use. And people use Google Plus on there. And what happened with these tablets that are kind of wide, when we added the bottom bar and it was translated into character-based languages, The text was really small. It was just like two characters for each thing. So what people would get is this black bar on the bottom. And in the middle was like four little icons of like two words.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And there's just this big spacing on the sides. And no wonder they're pissed off and telling me it's horrible and foolish and looks bad. So even in the darkest corners of the Trollosphere, there may be an insight lurking. So. At this point, I think it's worth remembering this quote. This is from the first Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. He actually ended up winning it three times in a row, Herbert Swope. And he says, I can't tell you how to be successful, but I can tell you how to fail, which is try to make everybody happy.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "And I think this is a really important thing that we forget a bunch of times. Right? We're so focused on trying to make everybody OK with the changes that we're making that sometimes we ignore the fact that when somebody really hates what you're doing, it's a sign they care. Why am I getting all these emails? Because people are actually passionate about it. They're trying to use the thing. If nobody emailed me about it, then I would be really concerned. Because that means no one gives a rat's patooey. When you've got really happy people or really angry people, that's a good thing.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "When you get no reaction whatsoever, that's a dangerous thing. The other thing is the types of changes that we're trying to make, changes that are really impactful, changes that move things 600%, 300%, those are usually big, meaty changes. They're not like changing the button from green to yellow or whatever, right? We've come up with a methodology of A-B testing to take arguments out of things. Because you make these tiny little things, oh, that performed a little bit better. OK, it performed better. We're all good. And we don't take these big jumps.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "We don't make harder steps, things that actually rustle some feathers, or frankly, irk people. And to come back to a tech quote So this is a tech talk, not one about reporting. This is Mr. Steven Sinofsky, who ran Windows for a long time. He's now a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. And what he says here is, products without a point of view have no point. And I like this because it kind of references the fact you need a compass. You need a direction to be going. And how do you tune your compass? How do you figure out the direction you should go?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "All these kind of processes that I walked you through, that iteration, that constant learning, that closeness to the customer, tunes your compass so that your point of view is sailing your ship in the right direction. And I think it matters a ton to get that right. The other point I'd like to make here is, and it comes back to what I was saying about the A-B testing, I hear a lot of people using the phrase data-driven decision-making. Have any of you heard that? We're a data-driven company. Very dangerous. Data shouldn't make the decisions for you.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "People should make decisions for you. And so data-informed, I think, is a great thing to aspire to be. We want to be a data-informed decision-making company. But data-driven, eh, quite challenging. especially when it comes time to stand up around big changes and things that may not be as popular. And so I think this point of view applies to things that may seem trivial or may seem small. I've often had conversations with people that say things to me like, hey, Luke, you did all that work for such an obvious design change? You did all that work just to make a bottom tab bar?", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "Well, yeah. I did. And I think it was worth it. Not only do I think it was worth it, I think it was really, really worth it. And when you get that kind of question, I actually think it's a really positive indicator that you're doing something right. Such an obvious design change. Is it worth it? Is all that work and effort for something that feels so obvious worth the effort? Well, you tell me. So to wrap this up, and maybe I'll have time for a question or two if I'm lucky, we talked about a couple things. One, design is obvious in retrospect.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "But in order to reveal that obviousness, in order to go on that journey and know which path is illuminated, where is the light shining, where should you go, you've got to go through this process. You can't just copy patterns. And to do that, you want to get as close to insights as possible. And the more, the merrier. Another common question is, should I do usability testing, or should I do A-B testing, or should I do ethnographic field research? Sure. Do whatever. The more you learn, the better off you are.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "When it comes time to either make or defend that decision, the more confident you'll feel. And that, again, to come back to my point, you can't just look at the quantitative or the qualitative. You want to at least look at both sides. And last but not least, we just talked about it. No matter how data informed you are and how right you think you are, you're not going to please everybody. That's OK. That's why you have a point of view, a compass. And things that are impactful aren't always popular with everyone. And that's OK. You can piss some people off. I'll leave you with that.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}, {"end": 0, "text": "I think I left time for two questions. Is that right, Toby, or not at all? OK. I got it. There's mics in the aisles. If you want to ask a question, yay. If you want to eat lunch, yay. No one's rushing to the mic, so eat some lunch. I'll hang out up here and talk to people who would like to talk. Thanks.", "start": 0, "speaker": "SPEAKER_00"}]}, {"id": "1361c5ba-b5ce-4c8b-971b-2fdfbd4f04c2", "url": "https://www.lukew.com/quotes/", "type": 1, "title": "Product Design Quotes", "summary": "", "entities": [], "metadata": {"tags": ["Subscribe to News", "Follow on Twitter"], "author": "", "longDate": "", "shortDate": ""}, "coverImage": "https://static.lukew.com/lukew_og_img7.png", "renderHtml": "

\n\n\n

\nThese bits of inspiration are culled from designers, architects, musicians, and more. What brings them together here is their affinity to LukeW's design philosophy.\n

\n\n

\n\t\"A great product isn't just a collection of features. It's how it all works together.\"\n\t—Tim Cook, September, 2014\n\t\n

\n\t\"Most business models have focused on self interest instead of user experience. Those are the kinds of problems we solve to solve.\"\n\t—Tim Cook, September, 2014\n\t\n

\n\t\"It's very easy to make something that is new. So we are trying to make things that are better.\"\n\t—Jonathan Ive, September, 2013\n\t\n

\n\t\"True simplicity is, well, you just keep on going and going until you get to the point where you go... Yeah, well, of course.\"\n\t—Jonathan Ive, September, 2013\n\t\n

\n\t\"We try to define a solution that seems so inevitable that it does recede.\n\n\"\n\t—Jony Ive, November, 2017\n\t\n

\n\t\"We don’t do focus groups - that is the job of the designer.\"\n\t—Jonathan Ive, March, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"[the design process] is about designing and prototyping and making. When you separate those, I think the final result suffers.\"\n\t—Jonathan Ive, March, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"If something is going to be better, it is new, and if it’s new you are confronting problems and challenges you don’t have references for. \"\n\t—Jonathan Ive, March, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"As consumers we are incredibly discerning, we sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed.\"\n\t—Jonathan Ive, March, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"You need the people who want to work at a high level but who can go all the way down to the atoms.\"\n\t—Ben Fried, March, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"We say no to a lot of things so we can invest an incredible amount of care on [what we do].\"\n\t—Jonathan Ive, July, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"Technology is, in the broadest sense, mind or intelligence or purpose blending with nature.\"\n\t—Paul Davies, April, 2011\n\t\n

\n\t\"The perfection of art is to conceal art.\"\n\t—Quintilian, 95\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is shrinking the gap between what a product does and why it exists.\"\n\t—Sahil Lavingia, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"The design is done when the problem goes away.\"\n\t—Jason Fried, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"Our role is to imagine products that don’t exist and guide them to life.\"\n\t—Christopher Stringer, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"Above all else, align with customers. Win when they win. Win only when they win.\"\n\t—Jeff Bezos, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"Creativity thinking about something until you find the simplest way to do it.\"\n\t—Tim Cook, 2012\n\t\n

\n\t\"The quality of any collaborative creative endeavor tends to approach the level of taste of whoever has the final cut.\"\n\t—John Gruber, 2010\n\t\n

\n\t\"Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.\"\n\t—Joe Sparano, 2009\n\t\n

\n\t\"Simple is hard. Easy is harder. Invisible is hardest.\"\n\t—Jean-Louis Gassée, 2008\n\t\n

\n\t\"Truly elegant design incorporates top-notch functionality into a simple, uncluttered form.\"\n\t—David Lewis, 2006\n\t\n

\n\t\"When you take technology and mix it with art, you always come up with something innovative.\"\n\t—Robert Rodriguez, 2006\n\t\n

\n\t\"An enterprise's most vital assets lie in its design and other creative capabilities.\"\n\t—Samsung chairman Kun-Hee Lee, 2006\n\t\n

\n\t\"It's all about one thing: creative problem-solving to get the story out.\"\n\t—Robert Greenberg, R/GA, 2006\n\t\n

\n\t\"The challenge is about taking things that are infinitely complex and making them simpler and more understandable.\"\n\t—Robert Greenberg, R/GA, 2006\n\t\n

\n\t\"The product is the brand. You build brand in our industry through the product and the experience.\"\n\t—Jim Wicks, Motorola, 2006\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is always about synthesis -synthesis of market needs, technology trends, and business needs.\"\n\t—Jim Wicks, Motorola, 2006\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is the easiest way to reenergize a product.\"\n\t—Fast Company, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems.\"\n\t—Tim Brown, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"Your products run for election every day and good design is critical to winning the campaign.\"\n\t—Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design's fundamental role is problem solver\"\n\t—Fast Company, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"When people talk about innovation in this decade, they really mean design\"\n\t—Bruce Nussbaum, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.\"\n\t—Steve Jobs, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.\"\n\t—Steve Jobs, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.\"\n\t—Steve Jobs, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"I prefer design by experts - by people who know what they are doing\"\n\t—Don Norman, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing.\"\n\t—Edward Tufte, 2005\n\t\n

\n\t\"Good design is the most important way to differentiate ourselves from our competitors.\"\n\t—Samsung CEO Yun Jong Yong, 2004\n\t\n

\n\t\"Simple design, intense content.\"\n\t—Edward Tufte, 2004\n\t\n

\n\t\"A picture is worth a thousand words. An interface is worth a thousand pictures.\"\n\t—Ben Shneiderman, 2003\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department.\"\n\t—Tom Peters, 2003\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.\"\n\t—Steve Jobs, 2003\n\t\n

\n\t\"Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability — they should go hand in hand.\"\n\t—Donald Norman, 2003\n\t\n

\n\t\"Visual appearance is one of the most effective variables for quickly differentiating one application from another.\"\n\t—Bob Baxley, 2003\n\t\n

\n\t\"Like all forms of design, visual design is about problem solving, not about personal preference or unsupported opinion.\"\n\t—Bob Baxley, 2003\n\t\n

\n\t\"[Users] said they were more likely to\nbelieve Web sites that looked professionally designed.\"\n\t—Stanford Web Credibility Study, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"Interactive design [is] a seamless blend of graphic arts, technology, and psychology.\"\n\t—Brad Wieners, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"[Leonardo Da Vinci] combined art and science and aesthetics and engineering, that kind of unity is needed once again.\"\n\t—Ben Shneiderman, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone.\"\n\t—Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"True interactivity is not about clicking on icons or downloading files, it’s about encouraging communication.\"\n\t—Ed Scholssberg, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"The display is the computer.\"\n\t—Jen-Hsun Huang, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"The location of visual elements in the UI has a huge impact on how the user interprets information.\"\n\t—Rick Oppedisan, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"The design of good houses requires an understanding of both the construction materials and the behavior of real humans.\"\n\t—Peter Morville, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"…effective communication is a key factor in the success of your product.\"\n\t—Jesse James Garrett, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"Problems with visual design can turn users off so quickly that they never discover all the smart choices you made with navigation or interaction design.\"\n\t—Jesse James Garrett, 2002\n\t\n

\n\t\"To dismiss front-end design as mere ‘icing’ is to jeopardize the success of any site.\"\n\t—Curt Cloninger, 2001\n\t\n

\n\t\"If a site is perfectly usable but it lacks an elegant and appropriate design style, it will fail.\"\n\t—Curt Cloninger, 2001\n\t\n

\n\t\"Business success is always defined by the quality of the overall customer experience.\"\n\t—Forrester Research, 2001\n\t\n

\n\t\"As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.\"\n\t—Jef Raskin, 2001\n\t\n

\n\t\"Good designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate ideas through the organizing and manipulating of words and pictures.\"\n\t—Jeffery Veen, 2000\n\t\n

\n\t\"I’ve been amazed at how often those outside the discipline of design assume that what designers do is decoration. Good design is problem solving.\"\n\t—Jeffery Veen, 2000\n\t\n

\n\t\"The basis for success of [media] products, in addition to their usability and efficiency, is often the potential to arouse.\"\n\t—Reeves & Naas, 1999\n\t\n

\n\t\"Websites that are hard to use frustrate customers, forfeit revenue and erode brands.\"\n\t—Forrester Research, 1998\n\t\n

\n\t\"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.\"\n\t—Steve Jobs, 1998\n\t\n

\n\t\"The fusion of art and technology that we call interface design.\"\n\t—Steven Johnson, 1997\n\t\n

\n\t\"...that strange new zone between medium and message. That zone we call the interface.\"\n\t—Steven Johnson, 1997\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.\"\n\t—Paul Rand, 1997\n\t\n

\n\t\"Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.\"\n\t—Paul Rand, 1997\n\t\n

\n\t\"Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all.\"\n\t—Douglas Martin, 1989\n\t\n

\n\t\"We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make 'me too' products.\"\n\t—Steve Jobs, 1984\n\t\n

\n\t\"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.\"\n\t—Richard Buckminster Fuller, 1980\n\t\n

\n\t\"Good design is thorough down to the last detail.\"\n\t—Dieter Rams, 1978\n\t\n

\n\t\"Good design is as little design as possible.\"\n\t—Dieter Rams, 1978\n\t\n

\n\t\"Good design makes a product understandable.\"\n\t—Dieter Rams, 1978\n\t\n

\n\t\"Art does not begin with imitation, but with discipline.\"\n\t—Sun Ra, 1956\n\t\n

\n\t\"The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty.\"\n\t—Frank Lloyd Wright, 1908\n\t\n

\n\t\"We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.\"\n\t—John Ruskin, 1880\n\t\n

\n\t\"[Users] make their credibility-based decisions about the people or organization behind the site based upon the site's overall visual appeal.\"\n\t—Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose\"\n\t—Charles Eames\n\t\n

\n\t\"To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master\"\n\t—Milton Glaser\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is directed toward human beings. To design is to solve human problems by identifying them and executing the best solution.\"\n\t—Ivan Chermayeff\n\t\n

\n\t\"Design is the art of gradually applying constraints until only one solution remains.\"\n\t—Unknown\n\t\n

\n\t\"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.\"\n\t—Bertrand Russell\n\t\n

\n\t\"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.\"\n\t—Hans Hofmann\n\t\n

\n\t\"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.\"\n\t—Charles Mingus\n\t\n

\n\t\"Form follows function-that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.\"\n\t—Frank Lloyd Wright\n\t\n

\n\t\"The details are not the details. They make the design.\"\n\t—Charles Eames\n\t\n

\n\t\"Science arose from poetry… when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.\"\n\t—Johann Goethe\n\t\n

\n\t\"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.\"\n\t—Antoine De Saint-Exupery\n\t\n

\n\t\"Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.\"\n\t—Brian Reed\n\t\n

\n\n

", "textOnlyHtml": "These bits of inspiration are culled from designers, architects, musicians, and\nmore. What brings them together here is their affinity to LukeW's design\nphilosophy.\n\n> \"A great product isn't just a collection of features. It's how it all works\n> together.\" —Tim Cook, September, 2014\n\n> \"Most business models have focused on self interest instead of user\n> experience. Those are the kinds of problems we solve to solve.\" —Tim Cook,\n> September, 2014\n\n> \"It's very easy to make something that is new. So we are trying to make things\n> that are better.\" —Jonathan Ive, September, 2013\n\n> \"True simplicity is, well, you just keep on going and going until you get to\n> the point where you go... Yeah, well, of course.\" —Jonathan Ive, September,\n> 2013\n\n> \"We try to define a solution that seems so inevitable that it does recede. \"\n> —Jony Ive, November, 2017\n\n> \"We don’t do focus groups - that is the job of the designer.\" —Jonathan Ive,\n> March, 2012\n\n> \"[the design process] is about designing and prototyping and making. When you\n> separate those, I think the final result suffers.\" —Jonathan Ive, March, 2012\n\n> \"If something is going to be better, it is new, and if it’s new you are\n> confronting problems and challenges you don’t have references for. \" —Jonathan\n> Ive, March, 2012\n\n> \"As consumers we are incredibly discerning, we sense where has been great care\n> in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed.\" —Jonathan Ive, March,\n> 2012\n\n> \"You need the people who want to work at a high level but who can go all the\n> way down to the atoms.\" —Ben Fried, March, 2012\n\n> \"We say no to a lot of things so we can invest an incredible amount of care on\n> [what we do].\" —Jonathan Ive, July, 2012\n\n> \"Technology is, in the broadest sense, mind or intelligence or purpose\n> blending with nature.\" —Paul Davies, April, 2011\n\n> \"The perfection of art is to conceal art.\" —Quintilian, 95\n\n> \"Design is shrinking the gap between what a product does and why it exists.\"\n> —Sahil Lavingia, 2012\n\n> \"The design is done when the problem goes away.\" —Jason Fried, 2012\n\n> \"Our role is to imagine products that don’t exist and guide them to life.\"\n> —Christopher Stringer, 2012\n\n> \"Above all else, align with customers. Win when they win. Win only when they\n> win.\" —Jeff Bezos, 2012\n\n> \"Creativity thinking about something until you find the simplest way to do\n> it.\" —Tim Cook, 2012\n\n> \"The quality of any collaborative creative endeavor tends to approach the\n> level of taste of whoever has the final cut.\" —John Gruber, 2010\n\n> \"Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.\" —Joe Sparano, 2009\n\n> \"Simple is hard. Easy is harder. Invisible is hardest.\" —Jean-Louis Gassée,\n> 2008\n\n> \"Truly elegant design incorporates top-notch functionality into a simple,\n> uncluttered form.\" —David Lewis, 2006\n\n> \"When you take technology and mix it with art, you always come up with\n> something innovative.\" —Robert Rodriguez, 2006\n\n> \"An enterprise's most vital assets lie in its design and other creative\n> capabilities.\" —Samsung chairman Kun-Hee Lee, 2006\n\n> \"It's all about one thing: creative problem-solving to get the story out.\"\n> —Robert Greenberg, R/GA, 2006\n\n> \"The challenge is about taking things that are infinitely complex and making\n> them simpler and more understandable.\" —Robert Greenberg, R/GA, 2006\n\n> \"The product is the brand. You build brand in our industry through the product\n> and the experience.\" —Jim Wicks, Motorola, 2006\n\n> \"Design is always about synthesis -synthesis of market needs, technology\n> trends, and business needs.\" —Jim Wicks, Motorola, 2006\n\n> \"Design is the easiest way to reenergize a product.\" —Fast Company, 2005\n\n> \"Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design\n> problems.\" —Tim Brown, 2005\n\n> \"Your products run for election every day and good design is critical to\n> winning the campaign.\" —Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley, 2005\n\n> \"Design's fundamental role is problem solver\" —Fast Company, 2005\n\n> \"When people talk about innovation in this decade, they really mean design\"\n> —Bruce Nussbaum, 2005\n\n> \"Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up\n> expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.\"\n> —Steve Jobs, 2005\n\n> \"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.\" —Steve Jobs, 2005\n\n> \"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to\n> them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.\" —Steve Jobs,\n> 2005\n\n> \"I prefer design by experts - by people who know what they are doing\" —Don\n> Norman, 2005\n\n> \"The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to\n> develop strategies of seeing and showing.\" —Edward Tufte, 2005\n\n> \"Good design is the most important way to differentiate ourselves from our\n> competitors.\" —Samsung CEO Yun Jong Yong, 2004\n\n> \"Simple design, intense content.\" —Edward Tufte, 2004\n\n> \"A picture is worth a thousand words. An interface is worth a thousand\n> pictures.\" —Ben Shneiderman, 2003\n\n> \"Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every\n> single department.\" —Tom Peters, 2003\n\n> \"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it\n> works.\" —Steve Jobs, 2003\n\n> \"Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability — they should go hand in hand.\"\n> —Donald Norman, 2003\n\n> \"Visual appearance is one of the most effective variables for quickly\n> differentiating one application from another.\" —Bob Baxley, 2003\n\n> \"Like all forms of design, visual design is about problem solving, not about\n> personal preference or unsupported opinion.\" —Bob Baxley, 2003\n\n> \"[Users] said they were more likely to believe Web sites that looked\n> professionally designed.\" —Stanford Web Credibility Study, 2002\n\n> \"Interactive design [is] a seamless blend of graphic arts, technology, and\n> psychology.\" —Brad Wieners, 2002\n\n> \"[Leonardo Da Vinci] combined art and science and aesthetics and engineering,\n> that kind of unity is needed once again.\" —Ben Shneiderman, 2002\n\n> \"We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone.\"\n> —Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility, 2002\n\n> \"True interactivity is not about clicking on icons or downloading files, it’s\n> about encouraging communication.\" —Ed Scholssberg, 2002\n\n> \"The display is the computer.\" —Jen-Hsun Huang, 2002\n\n> \"The location of visual elements in the UI has a huge impact on how the user\n> interprets information.\" —Rick Oppedisan, 2002\n\n> \"The design of good houses requires an understanding of both the construction\n> materials and the behavior of real humans.\" —Peter Morville, 2002\n\n> \"…effective communication is a key factor in the success of your product.\"\n> —Jesse James Garrett, 2002\n\n> \"Problems with visual design can turn users off so quickly that they never\n> discover all the smart choices you made with navigation or interaction\n> design.\" —Jesse James Garrett, 2002\n\n> \"To dismiss front-end design as mere ‘icing’ is to jeopardize the success of\n> any site.\" —Curt Cloninger, 2001\n\n> \"If a site is perfectly usable but it lacks an elegant and appropriate design\n> style, it will fail.\" —Curt Cloninger, 2001\n\n> \"Business success is always defined by the quality of the overall customer\n> experience.\" —Forrester Research, 2001\n\n> \"As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.\" —Jef\n> Raskin, 2001\n\n> \"Good designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate\n> ideas through the organizing and manipulating of words and pictures.\" —Jeffery\n> Veen, 2000\n\n> \"I’ve been amazed at how often those outside the discipline of design assume\n> that what designers do is decoration. Good design is problem solving.\"\n> —Jeffery Veen, 2000\n\n> \"The basis for success of [media] products, in addition to their usability and\n> efficiency, is often the potential to arouse.\" —Reeves & Naas, 1999\n\n> \"Websites that are hard to use frustrate customers, forfeit revenue and erode\n> brands.\" —Forrester Research, 1998\n\n> \"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people\n> don't know what they want until you show it to them.\" —Steve Jobs, 1998\n\n> \"The fusion of art and technology that we call interface design.\" —Steven\n> Johnson, 1997\n\n> \"...that strange new zone between medium and message. That zone we call the\n> interface.\" —Steven Johnson, 1997\n\n> \"Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why\n> it is so complicated.\" —Paul Rand, 1997\n\n> \"Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest\n> expectations.\" —Paul Rand, 1997\n\n> \"Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside\n> the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design,\n> not no design at all.\" —Douglas Martin, 1989\n\n> \"We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make 'me too'\n> products.\" —Steve Jobs, 1984\n\n> \"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how\n> to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not\n> beautiful, I know it is wrong.\" —Richard Buckminster Fuller, 1980\n\n> \"Good design is thorough down to the last detail.\" —Dieter Rams, 1978\n\n> \"Good design is as little design as possible.\" —Dieter Rams, 1978\n\n> \"Good design makes a product understandable.\" —Dieter Rams, 1978\n\n> \"Art does not begin with imitation, but with discipline.\" —Sun Ra, 1956\n\n> \"The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the\n> rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand\n> in hand with beauty.\" —Frank Lloyd Wright, 1908\n\n> \"We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their\n> practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.\"\n> —John Ruskin, 1880\n\n> \"[Users] make their credibility-based decisions about the people or\n> organization behind the site based upon the site's overall visual appeal.\"\n> —Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab\n\n> \"Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a\n> particular purpose\" —Charles Eames\n\n> \"To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or\n> master\" —Milton Glaser\n\n> \"Design is directed toward human beings. To design is to solve human problems\n> by identifying them and executing the best solution.\" —Ivan Chermayeff\n\n> \"Design is the art of gradually applying constraints until only one solution\n> remains.\" —Unknown\n\n> \"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that\n> will allow a solution.\" —Bertrand Russell\n\n> \"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the\n> necessary may speak.\" —Hans Hofmann\n\n> \"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple,\n> awesomely simple, that's creativity.\" —Charles Mingus\n\n> \"Form follows function-that has been misunderstood. Form and function should\n> be one, joined in a spiritual union.\" —Frank Lloyd Wright\n\n> \"The details are not the details. They make the design.\" —Charles Eames\n\n> \"Science arose from poetry… when times change the two can meet again on a\n> higher level as friends.\" —Johann Goethe\n\n> \"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to\n> add, but when there is nothing left to take away.\" —Antoine De Saint-Exupery\n\n> \"Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.\" —Brian Reed"}], "openaiAnswer": "", "fromSuggestion": 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Here's some questions you can ask Luke Wroblewski