circle-d

Photo by anyjazz65 (CC:attrib 2.0 generic – thanks!)

In the last few years a new international cultural meme has developed: the apparent belief that photos of people who “look natural with no facial expressions eg smiling, grinning or frowning” deliver better national security than pictures of relaxed, smiling, happy people. At least this must be a meme for those who set the requirements for ID photos, e.g. a driver’s license or passport.

I just had my driver’s license re-photo’d. No, I am not going to post the photo, but you’ll get the idea from a friend’s comment that I look like something from (what would be) a very grim Madame Tussaud’s exhibit.

Another friend just got his Netherlands passport, and the photo took over 45 minutes of digital re-shooting to get right. “Right” means that his head shape and distance between the ears(!) fit within very strict guidelines.

Granted, that his new passport has a laser-etching on the reverse side of his photo, generated by his mug shot reversed, so that as you hold it up to the light, you see through the paper completely aligned with the photo on the front side. Way cool. But, again: no smiling. Apparently light-heartedness messes with laser beams.

Even Denmark, the country with the highest worldwide score for happiness, states in their consulate site “No smiling and no headgear please!,” although they include that friendly exclamation point.

I know I’m showing my age, but I remember when getting a passport photo was an opportunity to show an interesting face to the world. An opportunity, it seems, that is denied to most people now. OK, maybe with all of our online profiles, etc., we can shed this particular opportunity.

But even in these times, wouldn’t we rather that the first impression we give is of an approachable, happy individual? Doesn’t this precondition any interaction we have with officialdom, at least slightly?

One theory about what is behind this, is that it is due to the spread of face-recognition technology; showing emotion through facial expression “distorts” our machine-readable features.

The dystopian vision that emerges is of airports and major urban centres that are legislated as expression-free zones – no laughing, smiling, and certainly no expressions of sorrow. Just looking “natural with no facial expressions.”

But maybe we could get an emotion-zone set up next to the cigarette smokers.

Update!: Now the photo booths have to warn against public displays of happiness:

photo: dan paluska (cc: attrib 2.0 gen – thanks!)

During a recent trawl for blogs on sustainability and service design, I came across an old post on sustainability and user experience that, I believe, still has good bones.

Alexa Andrezejeski’s Adaptive Path post, from early 2008, addresses the question of what UX and sustainability have to do with each other. She writes about a discussion at Adaptive Path, which came up with a set of principles, including:

Experience is closely tied to sustainable behavior: People act un-sustainably because it’s often much easier or results in a better experience than doing otherwise….

Make sustainable experiences more compelling than the alternatives….
Understand and appeal to people’s motivations, values and aspirations…
Harness the power of information to help people make better decisions….
Promote a service-mindset vs. a product-mindset…
Communicate the business value of sustainability….

Her post ends with an expression of frustration with the difficulty of finding or creating opportunities to put this awareness into practice in aid of furthering sustainability.

Since 2008, people’s consciousness of the issues has intensified, as has awareness of the evidence of increasing climate chaos. So there is greater openness to the need for services/products that apply the congruence of user experience and sustainability, or even consideration of the one in the development of the other.

But the future is uneven, isn’t it. For example, see the problems around the launch of  PG&E smart meters in California, written about by Tom Raftery (PG&E smart meter communication failure – lessons for the rest of us). Read the rest of this entry »

Remembering my post from last year, when snowfall unleashed much irony-free snowman-building fun; here we are again, with the wonder of the white stuff charming the average Londoner.

One difference is that there is a lot more on Twitter this year about #uksnow and the tweet-mining UK snow map is now at version 2.0.

However, many people are trying to figure out the relationship between the colder winters we are facing, versus climate change and global warming. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday morning, and we’re traveling north on track number five through London Bridge station. North! Can you ever imagine?

I have always suspected that the only way to undo the mess that has been rush hour at London Bridge was to do something radical, or many things radical.

Southeastern Railway had their big, new timetable launch this Monday. They had preceded it by saying that it had involved a great deal of consultation, use projections and planning, but while they hoped that the changes would be generally appreciated, they also expected some people to be disappointed with the results.

There have been mixed reviews. The changes include the introduction of the North Kent high speed line, up to St Pancras, which dramatically decreases journey times from major towns, but costs a premium to use (around 30%).

Some lines have had service reduced, and there have been major route changes. From the customer perspective, it’s quite difficult to get the big picture of the changes. Read the rest of this entry »

Like the proverbial cobbler whose children go barefoot, circle-d has very bad about utilising our own expertise – in this case to maintain a consolidated, up-to-date online presence.

So, today begins the relaunch of the circle-d site from this blog, to explain and present current work and thinking in user experience, service design and strategic design.

While material is being assembled, please find gathered below some relevant blog posts that were originally posted in my personal blog. And for those of a nostalgic nature, you can still visit the old product and interaction design focused site (now with Flash 5!!).

Photo of “output of the new and improved CandyFab 4000″ by oskay  on Flickr under creative commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. Thanks!

…not necessarily simultaneously

I just saw this new-style safety pin and was fascinated by the idea that someone felt it was worthwhile, and a sensible business proposition, to improve on the old classic. I think, in many contexts, it would be an improvement. Smaller, lighter, less material, fewer production processes. All good things. And very elegant design. Undoubtedly, there are instances where the old, larger and more robust version would be more appropriate.

I would imagine it is inspired by shower curtain clips, and I saw one reference to knitting stitch holders. Nice re-appropriation of design. Read the rest of this entry »

Can anyone tell me why having a toothbrush at work in a UK corporate environment is faintly embarrassing? I have worked in small design studios that were home-like enough to allow for people parking their toothbrushes in the loo.

I can’t remember what it was like in US corporate workplaces, but in the UK, I feel compelled to palm the toothbrush and paste, and scuttle to the ladies’. Apparently in Germany, it is not a thing of strangeness. Witness above the happy array of brushes, paste and other devices.

Is it something about the “personal” being stored in the public realm? It makes me think of Chartier, a (19th century?) workers’ restaurant, now very much on the tourist trail, which has small drawers built into the architecture, where patrons would store their napkins between meals – the little drawers that look like miniature filing cabinets below the carafes. (Photo by kev_walsh, on Flickr under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic, thanks!)

So, when is Muji, or some other clever manufacturer going to come up with a mini storage method for 6 to 36 toothbrushes and accoutrements? With some method of personalising the front of the drawer, so people can easily locate their own. When I have a moment, I’ll return with the start of an open source scribble for how I would do one, and the name of that online one-off manufacturing source.

Originally posted on 9 February 2009

We were asked to land ourselves the other day.

As part of the day-after-the-day-it-snowed chaos at Heathrow, and after our second plane was canceled, we were instructed to go to gate 16 and “land ourselves.” I love insider terminology turned outwards.

We did try to find out what we were being asked to do, and I am sorry to say, we never found out. Instead, we got on a later flight, and left the landing bit to the crew.

There are lots of other things that BA could look at in their service offering regarding mass cancellation events. Why could we not all just re-book online? There were crowds of people (I mean that literally) wandering with web-connected phones trying to rebook their flights. In the end, physical queues were the order of the day.

Customer service desks in Terminal 5 have nice big LCD screens above them, that were not being used to explain what people should do if their flight was canceled, or what help staff at a given desk could offer.

At one desk, a hand written sign (ball point ink – invisible beyond 1.5 metres) listed services on offer, after stranded travelers had queued for a sufficient period of time to get close enough to read it. Crazy, eh?

Nonetheless, I would like to offer the as-yet-undefined-reflexive-verb “to land yourself” as a colourful addition to the English language.

Originally posted on 4 February 2009.

Note – but there is good service-improvement news: The Heathrow Express ticket kiosk in Paddington now has a live update feed of flight information – a good example of timely information which can help reduce people’s (users!) anxiety.

Kids! Teenagers! Running around outside! Playing! Getting aerobic exercise! In some cases, with their parents!

British! Strangers! Smiling and greeting one another! On the street!

It’s the Blitz spirit without the bad bits.

How can we harness the slightly-illicit, spontaneous, wacky aspect of playing in the snow to get us all more excited about exercise in other forms and contexts? Must read up on the big social change campaign around ten years ago in Finland that turned everyone into cross-country ski fanatics.

(Note: See Stuart Jeffries’ Guardian article, London’s Day of Innocence. It will probably make you smile.)

Originally posted on 2 February 2009.