The Usability of Things

Sometimes the most ubiquitous, boring objects are the ones most in need of an overhaul. These everyday textures can become so commonplace that they are unconsciously accepted, and we never stop to rethink and question them. However, taking the time to pay attention to these things can breathe new life into them, making people’s lives easier in ways nobody had thought of.

Take your average glass drink bottle and make the top twist off. Suddenly the need for clumsy bottle openers on every vending machine is obsolete. Add a spring mechanism to the inside of a pen. You have removed the need for easily lost caps. Replace the rotary dial on a telephone with buttons and you eliminate the finger yoga and frustration associated with making a phone call. Some people still have a fascination with the old way, but these new technologies catch on quickly due to their inherent speed and usability.

One everyday item that has yet to jump the usability barrier is the daily cup of hot coffee or tea. There have been a flood of attempts to make these easier to use, including styrofoam cups, Java Jackets, and my personal favorite, the plastic lid. These lids retain heat, become soft and change shape, and force you to drink through a tiny hole that focuses the burning liquid onto one spot in your mouth. Due to their lack of usability, these lids now have warnings embedded all over them, thankfully included in braille for the blind. That is, providing they want to get second degree burns on their fingertips to find out the liquid inside is hot.

Enter Dynamic Textures. April Tsui has invented a new material that, when activated by heat or pressure, translates two dimensional patterns into three dimensional shapes. The result is a cup that emulates a pufferfish, with spikes that stick out, not allowing you to grab the cup and pour the possibly scalding liquid onto your tongue until it has reached a cool enough temperature to drink.

As effective as this is, some people may have an aversion to this technique, particularly those that hold their coffee between their legs on the morning commute. Thankfully, she also offers a more subtle approach to making sure you don’t accidentally pour your drink all over yourself. This variation of the material stays two dimensional until you have the lid on your cup securely. When your beverage is safe, the material pushes out to form the grips used to hold and enjoy your morning refreshment.

While these may currently be experimental projects, considering how many times I have been fooled by a cup into thinking it wasn’t a dribble glass, I would love having the latter design on my desk. Meanwhile, April has been working with NASA to translate these textures onto Aerogel, which could have some amazing new implications.

They may not know what the full possibilities are of combining these futuristic directions, but they know it’s worth looking at. It’s worth the time and effort of exploring and rethinking what they have in order to find solutions that are exponentially better. By spending the time to look at the objects and solutions you use every day, you can end up revolutionizing everyday life.

Back when I was heavily involved in a few Graphic Design communities, I was talking to a friend I worked with regularly about different influences and reasons people become designers. We had the standard stereotypes covered. There were some people that just loved playing with the tools, like Photoshop and Illustrator. There were some that really wanted to be artists, but were afraid of trying to live without a steady paycheck. And there were some that were always trying to push themselves to new levels, to invent their own tools, to express things in new ways. We enthusiastically concurred that the latter were the people we liked and wanted to see more of in the world.

That’s when my friend asked me if I knew about John Maeda.

I didn’t.

My friend mocked a gasp, and reached into his bag to hand me some photocopied articles he had been reading. After our conversation, I sat down and began thumbing through the articles. Each one started with a short biography, the tale of a kid in a working-class family who had grown up with his parents stressing how important mathematics were, pushing him to study hard and strive to get into a university that they mentioned repeatedly as if it were a mythical place, nearly impossible to reach. MIT. It was not just a place of learning, it was the ultimate goal of achievement.

With a steady stream of dedication, this kid burned through years of courses in mathematics. It became a second language for him, a new way of seeing the world through numbers, variables, and complex equations, and how they all worked together in harmony to provide simple, direct conclusions.

As he neared the end of his high school career and it was time to choose a college, the decision had been made in his head for years. He applied, and was accepted. He immersed himself in all of the technology and knowledge that living in a hub of mathematic activity afforded him. He continued to work hard and develop his innate sense of formulas and algorithms, and as he became more and more advanced, he started discovering that he was slowly becoming less intrigued by the actual nuts and bolts of the mechanics of how mathematics worked.

Instead, he was growing entranced with the visual output of the solutions to his equations. The lines, diagrams, and shapes that were formed from repetitive calculations and computer programs started becoming lush, textured landscapes. He shifted his focus toward these images, and his professors immediately noticed his predilection toward the beauty of the results.

John Maeda’s “Infinity” (1993). 10,000 interconnected loops, generated by algorithm.

John stayed focused on the mathematics program at MIT, but developed more and more computer programs whose sole purpose was to generate a specific image he had constructed in his mind. He didn’t use real-time image editing tools like Photoshop or Illustrator, as they couldn’t handle algorithms this complex. Instead, he had to use his knowledge of mathematics to expand simple equations into flowering bursts of texture and color. He spent many long nights huddled in front of a computer screen, working on the code that could transfer his vision onto paper.

As John was working through the curriculum at MIT, he felt more and more like his purpose was different from the rest of his classmates. While he loved working in mathematics, his goal was not to get a numeric result, but to enjoy the representation of the results in their various possible forms. As he experimented with colors and repetition to eke out the most beautiful solutions, it occurred to him that he wanted to break away from the mathematics that now seemed so stifling. Instead, he wanted to focus on devoting himself to a classical training in the arts.

He hatched his plan of escape to leave the country, and flew halfway across the world to study at the Tsukuba University Institute of Art and Design in Japan. Before he left, however, a professor learned of his plans and pulled him aside. The professor advised him to do “something young”. “The classics,” he stated, “will be there when you are old and have the time to leisurely enjoy them.”

Maeda took this advice to heart, and incorporated his love of mathematics into his newly dedicated voyage into art. Soon he began developing complex interactive pieces that seemed simple, encouraging the user to play with them like toys.

John Maeda’s “Sunflowers” (2005). Repeating shifting segments of a single sunflower image.

When I read these stories, a wave of empathy rushed over me. I identified with his reasons, his experience, and his choices. The struggles he had gone through seemed so familiar, so similar to my own. The way he handled growing through different paths in life served as inspiration for choices I have made in life since, and I know many of the experiences I have been through wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for this tale of courage and determination.

John Maeda has since entrenched himself in the field of Interaction Design. He served as the Associate Director of the MIT Media Lab, started the Aesthetics + Computation Group to foster creativity in growing careers, and has written several books on interaction and media. He currently calls Maeda Studio his home, and you can see a wide selection of his work there.

The reason this all comes to the forefront right now is that for the last year he has been working on his “Laws of Simplicity”. Each law cuts down to a core truth about creating things that are well-designed, usable, simple, and most of all, fun. He has finally finished fleshing out all of these concepts into a book, appropriately titled The Laws of Simplicity.

I expect this book, like his others, to become standard reading for anyone creating things that require interaction with people. His writing is appropriately simple and light-hearted, getting across his points with explanations and metaphors that are identifiable and true. Check out his overview, with brief explanations of all of the laws. If it leaves you wanting more, get the book.

This morning an Industrial Designer came up to me with two pieces of rounded plastic that were nearly identical. Each piece was about twelve inches around and completely flat on one side, like the tip of a giant sphere had been cut off. They were both FDM prototypes of the same part that he had been struggling with for weeks. He held one in each hand and proclaimed “I can’t believe it! All this time and it was just that simple!”

The piece he had been working on was the rounded top of a rather complex bulbous shape. He had been working on the shape as a whole, and keeping everything together was a long, complicated procedure, as changing one part would bend the rest out of shape. As a result, the natural topography of each model was a complex weaving of shapes that looked similar to a hillside landscape. He had taken to sanding and polishing the natural grooves from the machine to make each attempt look smoother, stating it would emulate the final product. He had gotten completely frustrated and went to a senior coworker for advice.

The senior person simply made one curve over the entire top. He sent it to the FDM, and the instant it came out, the coworker who had been so flustered stood slackjawed for just a moment, then said “I don’t need to polish this one, I know it’s perfect.”

As he held up the two samples, I saw the new one next to the muddy landscape of the other. The piece was clear and concise, just a series of growing concentric circles.

The simplest answer tends to be the best. Never be afraid to step back and do something the easy way.

Welcome to my mission to make the world a more usable place.

I will be your host on this journey through the world of gadgets, design, interfaces, and usability. This is a place where simplicity is king, and cramming a bunch of unwanted features into a product won’t earn you any points. We live in a world where phones are the new truly personal computers and watches are pure accessory. Every day we buy new gizmos to make our lives simpler, and they come packed with so much stuff we don’t want that we determine we will never be able to use it correctly, and it becomes another piece of clutter making life more complicated. Soon we are surrounded by fancy inventions that have one specific use, but are so overwhelmed with options that they never get used.

Then we have the marvels of innovation. The simple devices that are unassuming, but very useful, and clever to boot. They don’t scream what they do, or even require manuals. Not only do they accomplish their task with ease, they are durable, comfortable, and will accomplish any other tasks you decide would be appropriate. These are the chosen ones that truly make life a more fun and usable place.

I make devices like these for a living, and I intend to get the most living out of my devices. I want to make sure the gizmo isn’t a novelty, and will still be useful even when it’s obsolete. Along the way, I will share daily observations about what it takes to make these things, as the simplest ones are typically the most complicated to make.

This site will be an ongoing exercise in usability as well, and should evolve to become better over time. You can currently subscribe to comment threads to be emailed if someone replies, and you can even quote them in your response, to avoid having to use some arcane numbering system. If it suits you, pick up an RSS feed of my updates to stay up to date. You can even read the site from your phone at http://wap.theusabilityofthings.com/ if you are a jetsetter. If you like an article, use the pictures at the bottom of each post to tell others about it on your favorite link aggregator site. So many options to make sure you are able to use the site, and I am always open to suggestions. Just hit the “Contact” section up top to send me your thoughts.

Keep the knowledge coming.