FOWA 2007 day two - Khoi Vinh -- Managing UI

Well, had to get CU-1 to school this morning so I missed the first talk:-(

I’m taking my notes in Omni Outliner today, rather that just typing away stream-of-consciousness style. Later I’ll have a go at generating a mind map or two (mine never seem to be as wonderful as the ones you see on flickr, wish me luck…)

Here is the OO tree for the presentation by the New York Times:

Khoi Vinh: Managing UI

• What we do what we don't do
  • We do not design the news
    • Story visualisations
  • We do design the platform
    • Exremely high volume of publishing
    • Impossible to art direct every story
    • We do slideshows
      • "Explore the great wall"
    • We do templates
  • Exceptions
    • Special editions
    • Editor and techs work together
    • These exceptions are not compatible with template system
  • Make choices about where to put resources
    • News is templated
    • Tools are limited
      • Instant publishing
      • But not instant design
• The future
  • We hope new tech will let us design in real time
• Content and functionality - from delivery to conversation
  • Shift in consumption of news
    • Consume differently
    • Consume with a different mindset
  • From "talk to" to "talk with"
    • (From one 2 many --> many to many)
  • Content begets functionality
    • memeorandum.com
    • digg.com
    • NYT is building discrete apps
      • MyTimes
      • TimesFile
        • Saving and tagging re articles
      • Times Topic
      • Timesreader
    • Dispersing technology through site
      • No ghetto for multimedia
        • Inline audio
        • Inline video
      • Permalinking through pay wall (yes!)
• The design approach - a new paradygm
  • Evolution of the tension between editors and readers
    • Shows evolution of empowering designers
    • Contrasts evolution of empowering readers
    • Consumers love both high and lo quality
      • HDTV -- YouTube
      • Skype -- sms
      • Times reader --- memeorandum
      • Digital SLRs -- Cameraphones
    • The siren call of 2.0
      • Consumers just want what's useful
      • Don't want basic mission obscured
        • What are the basics? avoid featuristis
  • Management - getting it done
    • A definition of management: "the art of getting things done through people"
    • Not the same for designers
  • Establishing design principles
    • The cost of interface
      • Free isn't really free
        • Additional interface bits
        • Additional code
        • Additional testing
        • Long term support
        • Feature noise users need to tune out
    • The cost of expression
      • In traditional media authors bear the cost of expression
      • In digital media the cost of expression is shared with the user
    • Our applications are machines
    • Over determination
      • "All things are overdetermined. For any single thing of importance there are multiple reasons" - M Scott Peck
    • Options are obstructions
    • Offend experts not beginners
      • Shows bell curve - most users are intermediate
      • But most features are used by experts
    • Navigation within reason
      • You don't need to get everywhere from everywhere
    • Test like you mean it
      • Real users
      • Avoid executive testing
      • Test for usability not acceptance
    • Writing is interface design
      • twitter.com
        • "What are you doing?" the label is part of the interface
        • This has a big effect on content creation
    • Make a thing what it is (affordance! yes!)
      • Let tabs be tabs, let buttons be buttons, let links be links
    • Design, don't decorate
    • Context over consistency
      • Variety, not monotonous (change OK)
    • Use a grid
      • Shows a NYT grid (note advertising doesn't fit the grid)