User Centered

Seth Godin:

Here's why people liked the telegraph: It was universal, inexpensive, asynchronous and it left a paper trail.

The telephone offered not one of these four attributes.

If only mobile phones offered inexpensive way to communicate asynchronously.

Pictured to the right: eco-neighbuzz, an apartment buzzer & intercom system with additional features.

The only certainties in life. I’m scared of all of 'em, that’s why I respect 'em....but dang-it, I shouldn’t be scared of my phone.

Here’s the facts:
-We’re forgetful
-no one wants to hear a phone go off in a theater, concert, movie, library, meeting....
-no one wants to be singled out for said action
-Don’t bring it at all? Probably not too reasonable in the days of smart phones and expected "instant access"

What possible way is there to deal with this? Can we? It seriously is a *problem* that we can't cast away by saying "stop being so stupid- remember to turn off your phone" because obviously, that's not happening. Just read this article on what happened in one theater (textually.org), it's crazy! No one wants to be in that situation- NO ONE. The end result is that we are scared of oru technology- that's why I'm so diligent with mine... I'm scared to death that my ringer will make me the social leper in the theater. So what can we do?

My afore mentioned schedule idea:

why can't I tell my phone my schedule and have it do something meaningful as a result- like for instance- automatically set itself to vibrate or silent mode Mon-Friday from 8-5? Of course, you can over ride the setting- but it would be nice if I could tell my phone my class or work schedule up front and then have it switch to a respectible mode. -Cell phone scheduling (PIM/Cellphone Convergence)

update- image included

...a phone with a usable/aware calendar might be able to go into vibrate/silent mode automatically. It would also be nice for (like the Treo) a hard switch to silence the phone. Something you could simply reach into the purse or pocket inconspicuously and silence.

It seems that most phones I've owned over the years have two or three software based switches that let you change the ringer mode. My RAZR has a software and (when closed) you can use the volume switches..

*warning! tangent* those switches! If you have a RAZR, how about the fact that there are three buttons you can use to change the ring tone- the volume up, volume down, and the "smart key" just below it... obvious logic would dictate that you could hit the smart key to activate the ringer change mode, then cycle through the the ringer settings using the volume up/down buttons right? Well, no, it's completely backwards. Either the up/down buttons activate the ringer setting function, and the smart key cycles through. I *still* fumble with that on occasion and now just simply use the software methods to switch... ugh *end tangent*

...anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, in any event the feature I missed most was that some old Nokia phone I had let me hold the "#" key and it would switch to vibrate, and when I held it again, it switched back, but didn't make a noise (I don't think). The Treo smartphones have the nice hard switch at the top. I *have* to imagine this is the one most used features, why don't other phones embrace and facilitate this? There should not be a single phone out there that doesn't have immediate, one button access to silence. And further, it should be able to be done in silence and even be done without looking at it (like while it's in your pocket or purse) to do it discreetly. It would be really cool if you could reach into your pocket/purse, and immediate tell by touch that your phone is silenced to give you that confidence that you won't be singled out by the actor on stage.

Scheduling, facilitating vibrate/silence are small steps that are still miles away from solving this problem...I can't think of a good answer, maybe you have better thoughts?

I imbibe the vast majority of my digital music during my workouts. When I first got my iTunes/iPod all setup on my PC, one of the very first things I did was search the iMixes for a good sampling of "workout music." Sure I had my own music I enjoy... and even a good number of it is upbeat and fast paced, but in general, the kind of music I would run too needs to just help pace me and keep me going. I'm not looking to be the next American Idol while I'm jogging through my neighborhood.

My first thought was: "Surely folks like say...workout instructors would have put up a good iMix on iTunes by now?" (incidently, my second thought was: "no they don't, and don't call me Shirley") But I never really found anything there (this was in Sep 04 and occasionally thereafter- I'm sure you could find an imix or two there now that meets this criteria, but it's still like 'Thunderdome' out there I'm sure). I would have thought it was common sense to be able to see a playlist of songs like "30 minutes running music" or playlists from the fitTV show: "Cardio Boot Camp with Kendell Hogan" ...something along those lines.

I guess the long and short of all this is that I viewed working out/running as a significant activity used with my music player and I was slightly surprised that there was not enough...what I'll call "pushing" in that direction. Apart from the stopwatch, elastic armband and a few other 3rd party gadgets- there really didn't seem to be a lot of focus on using and encouraging physical activity. More surprising since a casual glance at the gym goers shows that most of them have a music player of some sort.

So this Nike/Apple thing (read about it here-Apple.com) seems like it's been long overdue. I'm not sure how gimmicky this whole idea is, but a quick look at the sync page shows that Apple and Nike are being clever at really supporting this activity.

First- they make progress tracking Drop Dead Simple. I'd think the reason most of are thinkg "eh, so what, I'd never use it..." is because it's always a hassle, or extra devices or configuration is necessary. Maybe you'd need an excel spreadsheet or some custom piece of software. All you have to do in this case is just sync you iPod up. From what I can tell, your data is sync'd with Nike's website, so you don't have to pay attention to it at all until you are actually interested in seeing your progress. Simple- I'm not sure what hassle's and hoops you have to jump through to use the Nike website (as I don't want to register) but it appears to be pretty simple to use (albeit overly flashy). You're already going to sync your ipod, and you're already taking it to the gym. You just have to put some gizmo in your shoe, and you're off!

Second is the iTunes music store support. I'm finally seeing an abundance of choice in helping to build a good playlist for your jog:

• Sport iMixes: Professionally selected playlists designed to motivate you through the most demanding workouts.
  
• Athlete Inspirations: Playlists chosen and introduced by top athletes.
  
• Continuous Workout Mixes: Workout routines developed for use with Nike+iPod time- or distance-based workouts. Each routine offers coaching, motivational, and training tips over a continuous mix of music.
  

Regardless of how successful or useful all this is, it's still interesting to see them thinking and supporting how people use their products. Maybe I'm in the minority, but this has always seemed like a lost opportunity to help your customers (until now).


Update: Here's a MS version of this idea- but of course, being the "User Centered" blog, I'd have to say this MS offering looks like too much. I just liked the simplicity of the Apple/Nike setup. Although Jeff, this kinda looks like it has the other feature I was telling you about: (everyone else just gets to imagine)

selecting and playing music with specific features that will encourage the user to speed up, slow down or keep the pace to be on track with his/her exercise goals.

(update via gizmodo)

Training wheels are counter intuitive to learning to ride a bike. They provide a false sense of balance. Enter: the GyroBike:

How it works
The GyroBike ‘senses’ unbalanced riding and steers the bike in the correct direction for stability. It provides high speed stability at startup speeds - both in straight riding and in turning motion.

I'm not sure how it will steer the bike in the correct direction if the rider's instincts prevent it from turning, but most newbies will probably just follow the direction of the bike anyway.

Anyway, kudos for actually helping kids *learn* about balance.

*note- this post is old. I just copied it from the "raw dump" below so I could appropriately tag it...


Great product. I have one of the old school ones that allow you to skip commecials which has become really the only feature left worth bragging about. The product has not had anything innovative happen to it the entire time I’ve owned a replayTV. In fact, the opposite has occured (by disabling the network sharing and commercial advance). Oh- I stand corrected, it did get a more quite fan.

So I’m getting a Moxi DVR from Charter installed today. I would keep my replayTV- but I’m ditching it for several reasons:

1) Digital cable. I got DC now and replayTV is a dog when it comes to changing the channels with the IR Blaster.
2) Also with regular cable, I could split the input- one went to the replay, the other went to the TV- that way, I could record a show on the replay, and switch input back to the TV and watch TV. Not so with the digital cable box. I can not watch anything else while something is recording. My wife is quite fond of live TV due to her spontaneous nature.

Moxi has two tuners- so I can record one, watch another- and when I’m not watching at all, with two tuners I don’t think I’ll run into hardly any schedule conflicts (I barely did with only one tuner)

3) My wife will no longer allow the big CAT5 cable to run across our living room. It was a replayTV selling point to me that it was networked out of the box and programs like dvarchive (dvarchive.org) allowed you to share programs with your PC. I Just found the software to slow to use, and I never did get that wireless bridge over at my entertainment center.

Although, as nostalgia sets in…I’m going to miss the grid layout that replay has, and the ablity to to create channels off of search words (Create a channel called “Star Wars”.. and you get anything about Star Wars recorded there… even Ronald Reagan initiated missile defense programs).