Tuesday, 26th July 2005
UI And Hitting Artistic High Notes
This article presents my take on a subtle side issue brought about in Joel's latest article 'Hitting the High Notes'. The issue of User Interface design isnt the main topic of his essay, but he does bring up the issue when he discusses about 'software being about artistic high notes' and throws up Apple's IPod as an example. In my opinion User Interfaces design is all about 'hitting artistic high notes'. Creating good user interfaces is very difficult in practice, especially if the designer thinks he's a very smart person, and a good programmer.
Remindes me of the time, i had a conversation with a certain gifted developer classmate of mine 'Rajesh Goli'. The time was about a year and a half ago, when i was at BMS college of engineering and in the seventh semester. There was bunch of us guys, hanging around near the professor's rooms debating on the course to choose for the single elective for eight semester. The options available to us included 'Data Warehousing', 'Cryptography and Network Security' and 'Management in Engineering'.
Arguments were thrown from different sides about which would be the more beneficical course academically, which would be the most rewarding course (in terms of marks) and also arguments in favour of which course would be the least taxing. As we were weighing our options, somebody noticed that there was a course on 'Graphical User Interface Design' which was a possibility as a course that nobody had mentioned until this point. I quickly downplayed that such as course would be a mere waste, with nothing much to learn. At the point i was under the naive assumption that User Interface (UI) design consisted of dragging and repositioning boxes on Forms in Visual Basic. A harsh note of criticism from rajesh was to follow and he quickly put me in my place. Rajesh's comments then, come back to haunt me now and his words make perfect sense. "Most people dont understand User Interfaces and User-Computer Interaction. GUI design courses is one of the most important computer science courses that *should* be taught in school".
Desktop UIs are maybe not "complex", but _very_ few people seem to understand even the basics of human-computer interaction. Often we find ourselves working with some very talented and intelligent people, who produce absolutely horrible UIs. It has more to do with the fact that not every one has a good sense of User Interface aesthetics. Sadly i dont consider my self to be aesthetically gifted either. User Interface design is often downplayed during the design phase of any major software project and understandably too. However this is akin to putting on a cheap suit for an important interview. User Interface is similar to marketing. If you skimp on it, you software will bomb at the market and the money you saved is lost in the din.
The same thing applies to the entertainment industry. It's worth hiring 'Brad Pitt' for your latest blockbuster movie, even though he demands a high salary, because that salary can be divided by all the millions of people who see the movie solely because Brad is so damn hot.Or, to put it another way, it's worth hiring 'Angelina Jolie' for your latest blockbuster movie, even though she demands a high salary, because that salary can be divided by all the millions of people who see the movie solely because Angelina is so damn hot.Take Apple's IPod for instance. The MP3 decoder used in iPod was likely not even written by Apple. They did, however, design and implement the user interface of the iPod. The iPod is the most seamless piece of consumer electronics I have ever seen. It's beautiful. Nobody else is making money on MP3 players other than Apple. And MP3 player makers are dime a dozen. But what makes the IPod click ... well you guessed right, its the UI. Style, Happiness, Emotional appeal. These are what make the huge hits, in software products, in movies, and in consumer electronics. And if you don't get this stuff right you may solve the problem but your product doesn't become the #1 hit that makes everybody in the company rich.
Some people may argue that User Interfaces are not complex and you need extrodinary smart people only when you're going to create something really complex. By "Complex" i mean, that there's some kind of pure theory behind operation of this program. Statistical programs, medical imaging, dsp, 3d modelling, simulators of various kind, AI systems , .... - that is complex. Desktop UI is not, no matter how you put it. Its not the complexity behind the UI design that matters, its the artistic high notes i mentioned of earlier. Apple made a decision based on style, in fact, iPod is full of decisions that are based on style. And style is not something that most everyday plain jane programmers can achieve and not every one is a 'Jonathan Ive'.
Take another example of Joel himself and his company 'Fog Creek Software'. There's absolutly nothing complex in either CityDesk or in FogBugz. I mean technical side, not all marketing/sales/management stuff. But still Fogbugz is selling like 'iced lemonade on a hot summer afternoon'. Not only does his 'Bug Tracking Software' solve the problem, Joel's sense of aesthetics, User Interface design, understanding of Human-Computer Interaction is so good, that it has reflected in his products and that's why they sell. Brings the issue of 'whether good looking software sells better' into perspective doesnt it. Here's what Joel says about the IPod.
I'm sorry, I can't stop talking about the iPod. That beautiful thumbwheel with its little clicky sounds ... Apple spent extra money putting a speaker in the iPod itself so that the thumbwheel clicky sounds would come from the thumbwheel. They could have saved pennies ... pennies! by playing the clicky sounds through the headphones. But the thumbwheel makes you feel like you're in control. People like to feel in control. It makes people happy to feel in control. The fact that the thumbwheel responds smoothly, fluently, and audibly to your commands makes you happy. Not like the other 6,000 pocket-sized consumer electronics bit of junk which take so long booting up that when you hit the on/off switch you have to wait a minute to find out if anything happened. Are you in control? Who knows? When was the last time you had a cell phone that went on the instant you pressed the on button?
Well you decide, is User Interface design complex, simple .... or all about 'Software design with Artistic High Notes' ?
Posted by Nikhil on Tuesday, 26th July 2005 in TechnoBabble | Nonsense