This is only Monday but things are moving so fast that it feels like Thursday already. For the last ten crazy years or more we have been working long hours, dealing with shocking events, learning to stay connected with others using technologies, trying to cope with the onslaught of data and messages that we can never be able to consume. Our minds are dealing with data overflow everyday and we are at the limits. I simply cannot deal with the number of passwords I need to remember in order to get my work done. Yes I think we've survived but we’ve spent most of our time trying to catch up. Learning to use a new piece of software every week, sometimes I wish there are more Steve Jobs in this or at least one in every industry. So what’s next, I think the next trend is we are starting to use the power of technology to reconnect to our humanity if we hope to thrive in the coming "creativity” age, where everything else is just commodity.
Social networks are really a wonderful new idea. When everything is moving so fast including people and events, technology acts as a repository so we can store them and to use them to reflect on our personal and societal tempos, as we embrace the power of creativity and daydreaming as antidotes to technology's sensory overload. A Harvard study shows that our minds may wander during routine tasks because daydreaming is the brain's normal state, rather than a distraction. In another words, daydreaming is not just beneficial, it is necessary. I was frequent day dreamer during my grad school days, somehow I did very well. Hmm, I think the theory is right (not when you are at high school). So rather than flattening our senses, we're using it to ignite our creativity, all these MySpace and YouTube and Facebook are the platform of expressions, or platform for identities if you prefer. I see them as platform for “micro-cultures” that allows tastemakers of the future to shape and influence others. I think “usability” and “experience designs” within the contexts of social networking are hugely influential on the future of marketing. It becomes an immediate and powerful source to validate “authenticity” much like people checking on the meaning of certain words from Wikipedia. What we see in these social networks is inflected by issues around class.
Thinking specifically around MySpace and. Facebook, they definitely appealing to two very different class. The”gaudy” nature of MySpace personalization that let people insert large amounts of HTML into their profiles to create busy background images with music etc.presents a contrast with the essentially “modular” and “functional” personalization of Facebook. Facebook’s interfaces do not strike me as “design” savvy or attractive but functional and simple. The use of whitespace and drop-down menus and the use of icons make it relatively uncluttered. There are some visual rhetorics in Facebook’s presentation that connote a somewhat restrained minimalism which is “simple” but not considered “designish”.
Looking at Facebook, one question pops up, “Why focus on design when usability and functionality would seem to be more important?” It is not one thing or another. The reason that HCD is popular because there's the actual consumer experience and people use things that resonate with them emotionally. And designing in the Web 2.0 world is so different and there are fundamental transitions in the technology that influence how we design. I think as a whole the design industry is strugling with this. In the early stages of the Web, it was about getting from one place to another and finding your way back. Now we're seeing many innovative new ways of interacting with the world. Not sure what percentage of uses remains passive and how for long. The industry really cries out for a new approach in experience design and usability. I think there are plenty of rooms for innovation. Some people argue that usability has too often taken on an intellectual and hermetic approach to problems that would require creative and emotional involvement instead to be solved. I don’t think that’s the case.
