Awareness and the home

Mickey McManusPresident & COO, MAYA Design, Inc.

Machine to Machine Manifesto

1. Focus on the “ghosts” in the machine

2. Magic is bad

3. Forget technology

4. Provide Awareness

5. Think bigger

MAYA Design, Inc.

Users are the ghosts in your machines

MAYA Design, Inc.

A quick example of a hostile user experience

Direct experience: aggregating positive and negative interactions

Overview > Research > Analysis > Design

Personas help us map breakpoints

Overview > Research > Analysis > Design

after

Lexicon shifts to user-centered (not system-centered) language

Reference desk = Ask a Librarian

Before and After

Before and AfterBefore and After

MAYA Design, Inc.

The home is an even more hostile user experience (when you try to

add pervasive elements)

Test Results: PackagingUser 6: Has difficulty opening the package

Mixed realm experience (w/uncontrolled environment)

Test Results: InstructionsUser 2: Too many manuals

Test Results: PackagingUser 6: Has difficulty opening the package (continued)

Test Results: InstructionsUser 4: Too many words, not enough pictures, no quick setup

Test Results: InstructionsUser 1: Terminology is difficult; he needs a setup wizard

Test Results: Instructions

User 4: Instructions are hard to follow

Test Results: Instructions

User 4: Instructions don’t help the average person

Test Results: Instructions

User 1: He can’t tell the difference between Z-Wave and X-10

Test Results: Instructions

User 6: No explanation for advanced concepts like “sensor groups”

Test Results: Setup and ConfigurationUser 5: User is hurt by very loud alarm during test

Test Results: Setup and ConfigurationUser 6: User is surprised by loud alarm during test

Test Results: Setup and ConfigurationUser 3: Presses button on sensor instead of on base station

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

MAYA Design, Inc.

Make it tangible

MAYA | Visage

One example?What if interfaces belonged to each user and not to each machine?

MAYA | Design Research: Personal Universal Controller (PUC)

In preliminary PUC tests, users completed tasks with 80% fewer errors -- and in half the time.

MAYA Design, Inc.

Ignore technology

MAYA Design, Inc.

Situational Awareness=ambience+attention

MAYA Design, Inc.

Think bigger

Experience and the emergence of pervasive (tangible) computing

Mixed realm experience (w/controlled environment)

Mixed realm experience (w/uncontrolled environment)

Single realm experience

Num

ber

of

info

rmati

on d

evic

es

Pervasiveness of experience (totality-tangibility)

Home, community

Auto, building, etc.Web app

Challenges to adoption in the home?

Ghosts in the machine-It is time to stop thinking “human computer interaction” but rather “human information interaction” (we need to start focusing on the user’s mental model/goal for all that information)

Tangibility vs Magic -Ignore information architecture and interaction physics at your peril

Forget technology -No way to currently “author” pervasive experiences (experimentation is hard)

Awareness- It will become the driving function as the world shifts to an attention economy (those who demand too much attention through too few channels without enough value will fail)

Think bigger-Trillions of nodes (hundreds/thousands in a given home or community) WILL happen… traditional engineering will not work (think evolution in the wild)…time to start thinking about style, shared practice and urban planning in the world of machines

“medium and literacy”

“Any medium powerful enough to extend man’s reach is powerful enough to topple his world. To get the medium’s magic to work for one’s

aims rather than against them is to attain literacy.”

Alan Kay

Thank you