It was a dark and stormy night... accounting for the physical when designing the digital

Yesterday, I used the London cycle hire scheme for the first time. I had checked all the instructions on how to hire a bike online before heading off to the nearest cycle station, all prepared with my cycle helmet and my payment card. For various reasons, it was dark and drizzling by the time I got there. The cycle station display was well illuminated, so I could go through the early stages of the transaction without difficulty, but then it came to inserting the payment card. Ah. No illumination. No nearby streetlight to improve visibility. I found myself feeling all over the front of the machine to locate the slot… which turned out to be angled upwards rather than being horizontal like most payment card slots. I eventually managed to orient the card correctly in the dark and get it into the reader.

Several steps of interaction later, the display informed me that the transaction had been successful, and that my cycle release code was being printed. Nothing happened. Apparently, the machine had run out of paper. Without paper, there is no release code, and so no way of actually getting a cycle from the racks.

To cut a long story short, it took over 30 minutes, and inserting my payment card into four different cycle station machines distributed around Bloomsbury, before I finally got a printed release code and could take a bicycle for a spin. By then it was too late to embark on the planned errand, but at least I got a cycle ride in the rain...

The developers have clearly thought through the design well in many ways. But subtleties of the ways the physical and the digital work together have been overlooked. Why is there no illumination (whether from street lighting or built into the cycle station) for the payment card slot or the printout slot? Why is there apparently no mechanism for the machine to detect that it is out of paper before the aspiring cyclist starts the interaction? Or to display the release code on-screen to make the system more resilient to paper failure? Such nuanced aspects of the situated use of the technology in practice (in the dark and the rain) have clearly been overlooked. It should be a universal design heuristic: if you have a technology that may be used outdoors, check that it all works when it's cold, dark and damp. Especially in cold, dark damp cities.

If we can't even design taps...

Today, I got a wet arm: the tap control was immediately behind the faucet, so I reached through the line of fire to turn it on, and the inevitable happened. But it looks Well Designed:

I thought I had already encountered every possible type of poor design: the tap that is unpredictable because there is only one control to govern both temperature and flow rate:

The tap that needs the explicit notice to tell the user how to make it work:

The taps where it's almost impossible to tell whether the water will flow from the shower head or the main tap:

The tap that looks as if you should turn it, when actually that controls the temperature, not the flow; for that, you have to pull the control towards you:

Yvonne Rogers told me of a tap that would only work if you were not wearing black....

The user of a tap wants to control two parameters: the temperature and the flow rate. There are plenty of designs around that enable people to do this without any faff at all. But these are apparently not interesting or exciting or aesthetically pleasing enough. So innocent users get frozen, scalded, bemused or unexpectedly wet as tap designers devise ever more innovative taps. If we can't even get tap design right, what hope for more complex interactive technologies, I ask myself...

 

Information detours

Recently, I did an online transaction. It started out superficially simple: to buy rail tickets from London to Salford. But then I had to check on a map of Salford to find out which station was appropriate. And the train operator wanted to know my loyalty card number, so I had to go and get that from my purse. Then my credit card supplier wanted me to add in additional security information, which of course I don't remember, so I had work to reconstruct what it might be. A superficially simple task had turned into a complicated one with lots of subtasks that comprise "invisible work".

It's a repeating pattern: that information tasks that are, at first sight, simple turn out to involve lots of detours like this, and sometimes the detours are longer than the original task.

Occasionally the detours are predictable; for example, I know that to complete my tax return I'm going to have to dig out a year's worth of records of income and expenditure that are filed in different places (some physical, some digital). There aren't actually a large number of relevant records, but I still dread this data collation task, which is why the relatively simple task of completing the form always gets put off until the last minute.

It's both hard to keep track of where one is amongst all these information detours and hard to keep focused on the main task through all the detours and distractions of our rich information environments. I'd like a supply of digital place-keeping widgets to help with progress-tracking amongst the clutter. If they could also link seamlessly to physical information resources, that would be even better...

Hammers and LaTeX: some challenges of interdisciplinary working

I am editing a document in LaTeX. I am just about capable of doing this, but I'm finding it a real strain. LaTeX is very familiar to many computer scientists (particularly those who need to include formal notations in their writing), but is not my document production tool of choice. For me, it is an unwieldy tool, and I am distracted from what I want to say by what I perceive as a clunky interface.

Martin Heidegger used the analogy of a hammer: when a hammer is well designed and being used correctly then it becomes an extension of the arm: it is effectively invisible. When it is too heavy for the user, or the centre of gravity is in the wrong place, or when the user hits their thumb with it, then the hammer becomes the focus of attention rather than the task at hand. The hammer is no longer invisible, but disruptive. For me, LaTeX is a disruptive tool: I'll get there in the end, but the tool is distracting me from the task.

So why am I using it? Because the people I'm working with are more comfortable with LaTeX than with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processors. For them, LaTeX is the invisible tool and they find it much more powerful than (for example) MSWord. So we have a very low-level, apparently trivial, barrier to interdisciplinary working: each of us finds it challenging to use the tools that the other finds most usable and useful.

The tools are just the start of the challenge: interdisciplinary working involves learning each other's language, respecting each other's culture and value system, learning how to communicate effectively and write in ways that "make sense" to the other. In CHI+MED, technologists and social scientists are working with clinicians, and we often find mismatches in understanding (e.g. some of us find error interesting, and a problem to be exposed and addressed, while others find even the suggestion that clinicians might ever make mistakes deeply threatening).  In SerenA, scientists are working with artists, and again there are differences in values, e.g. between productivity and creativity.

There is a big push towards interdisciplinary working in research, and this is really important. For example, "problem solvers" (computer scientists and technologists) who deliver innovative systems need to be able to communicate effectively with "problem owners" (medics, lawyers, journalists, and other knowledge workers) so that next-generation systems achieve their potential. It's also an exciting journey: we have so much to learn from each other! But we shouldn't underestimate the variety and magnitude of the challenges faced in interdisciplinary work. Now, back to that LaTeX...

The ethics of ethics

Is ethics about doing good or about avoiding doing harm?

Last week, I was chatting with a Danish colleague, who is running user studies in several European countries as part of the MONARCA project. They are developing and testing novel technologies for the detection and management of bipolar disorder. Apparently, it took 15 months to obtain ethical clearance to conduct studies in one country. 15 months!

Processes were faster in other countries, but still measured in months rather than weeks. In the UK, our experience is that the time taken to get approval to conduct user studies, even of established technologies, is highly variable, and unpredictable. But always measured in months rather than days or weeks. So it is impossible to plan a research project in detail before ethical clearance and R&D approval have been obtained. But this is a high-effort process, so you don't want to embark on it until you're sure the study will be going ahead.

The challenge of getting ethical clearance can be a real disincentive to proposing research projects on healthcare technologies. Why embark on projects in healthcare when you can do equally interesting projects in other areas that don't put such barriers in the way?

There have been some very welcome improvements over the past couple of years, with more streamlined processes for audit studies and proportionate review. But the focus is still on avoiding harm regardless of potential benefits. “VIP” is a useful mnemonic for the main concerns:

• Vulnerability: particular care needs to be taken when recruiting participants from groups that might be regarded as vulnerable, such as children, the elderly, or people with a particular condition (illness, addiction, etc.)
• Informed consent: participants should be informed of the purpose of the study, and of their right to withdraw at any time.
• Privacy and confidentiality should be respected.

However, our work with clinicians and patients has really brought home to me that ethics goes beyond VIP. It should be about doing good, not just avoiding doing harm. But "doing good" might be in the long term: understanding current design and user experiences to guide the design of future technologies. And that doesn't directly address the need to engage positively with research participants. What motivates an individual clinician, patient or carer to engage with research on the design and use of medical technologies? There should be some positive benefit to participants.

For some, it will be about the "common good": about being prepared to invest time and expertise for long-term benefits. For others, there's an indirect pay-back in terms of having expertise and experience recognised and valued, or of being listened to, or having a chance to reflect on their condition, or their use of technology. There are probably many other complex motivations for participating in research. As researchers, we need to better understand those motivations, and respect them and work with them.

Why do clinician and patients engage in research on healthcare technologies? Because the perceive value – whether personal or societal – outweighs the perceived costs. Why do researchers engage in research on healthcare technologies? Ditto. The costs to all parties need to be proportionate to the benefits. So the ethics processes need to be proportionate, to encourage essential research. And as researchers we need to be mindful of the benefits, as well as the costs, to participants in research.

Encountering information: serendipity or overload?

After my keynote at ISIC, one of the participants challenged me on my claim that information overload is a "bad thing" (not that I put it quite like that, but I certainly suggested it was something to be avoided). I framed it as a challenge when trying to design to support serendipity. We had an extended discussion about this later that day.

What Eva made me realise (thanks, Eva!) is that encountering exactly the same information can be regarded positively or negatively depending on the circumstances and the attitude of mind. If the attitude is one of exploring and of opportunity then the experience is typically positive. Eva consumes information enthusiastically on a wide variety of topics, and rarely if ever feels overloaded by the sheer volume of information available.

Whether or not information encountering is regarded as serendipitous is another question. A while ago, I gave a PechaKucha talk on the SerenA project; in the talk, I gave an example that I argue was serendipity: I encountered information that was unexpected, where I made a connection between my ambitions and an opportunity that was presenting itself, and from which the outcome was valuable. I also described the "sandpit" process that initiated SerenA – i.e., putting a bunch of academics together in a space that was conducive to ideas generation. Arguably, this experience was positive and creative, but not serendipitous, because it was designed to lead to positive outcomes. So although we could not have predicted the form of the outcome, we expected there to be an unanticipated outcome. So it wasn't serendipitous. Based on our empirical studies of serendipitous experiences, we have developed a process model of serendipity, namely that "a new connection is made that involves a mix of unexpectedness and insight and has the potential to lead to a valuable outcome. Projections are made on the potential value of the outcome and actions are taken to exploit the connection, leading to an (unanticipated) valuable outcome." From this, we also developed a classification framework
based on different mixes of unexpectedness, insight and value that define a “serendipity space” encompassing different “strengths” of serendipity.

So where does information overload fit? Well, as a busy academic, typical of many busy people, new information (however valuable) often represents new obligations:

•  to assimilate the information,
•  to assess its value, and
•  to act on it. 

I recognise the potential value of opportunities, and feel frustrated by my lack of capacity to exploit them all. And because of limited capacity, every opportunity taken means other opportunities that have to be passed over. In addition, limited memory means that even assimilating all the information I "should" know represents a substantial obligation that I can't hope to fulfill. So I feel under constant threat of information overload. And that seriously inhibits my openness to serendipitous encounters.

As recounted in the PechaKucha talk: twenty-something years ago, when my children were 2 years and 3 months old respectively, I came across an advert for a PhD studentship. It was my "dream" studentship, on an exciting topic and in the perfect location for me. Doing a PhD was not in my plans at the time, but was too good an opportunity to miss. And the outcome has been fantastic. It was unquestionably a serendipitous encounter. Apart from the unintended consequence that I now feel constantly under threat of total information overload!

The Hillsborough report 23 years on

I'm listening right now to the news report on the review of the Hillsborough disaster from 23 years. ago. I have heard terms including "betrayed", "dreadful mistakes were made", "lies" and "shift blame" (all BBC News at Ten). There is talk of "cover up", and people not admitting to mistakes made.

Families of the victims seem to be saying that they were never looking for compensation but that they wanted to be heard, and they want to know the truth. Being heard seems to be so important; if we do not hear then we do not learn; if we do not learn then we cannot change practices for the better. Maybe for some compensation is important, but for many others all that matters is that the tragedy should not have been in vain.

Earlier today, in a different context, a colleague was arguing that we need people to be "accountable" for their actions and decisions, that people need to be punished for mistakes. But we all make mistakes, repeatedly and often amusingly; for example, this evening, I phoned one daughter thinking I was phoning the other one, and because I was so sure I knew who I was talking to, and because we have a lot of "common ground", it took us both a while to realise my error. We could both laugh about it. Errordiary documents lots of equally amusing mistakes. But occasionally, mistakes have unfortunate consequences. Hillsborough is a stark reminder of this. Does unfortunate consequences automatically mean that the people who made mistakes should be punished for them? Surely covering up mistakes is even more serious than making errors in the first place. How much could we have learned (and how much easier would it have been for families to have recovered) if those responsible had not covered up and avoided being accountable? Here, I want to use the term "accountable" in a much more positive sense, meaning that they were able to account for the decisions that they made, based on the information and goals that they had at the time.

Being accountable currently seems to be about assigning blame; maybe this is sometimes appropriate – particularly if the individual or organisation in question has not learned from previous analogous incidents. But maybe sometimes learning from mistakes is of more long term value than punishing people for them. That implies a different understanding of "accountable". We need to find a better balance between blame and learning. Unless I am much mistaken.