in a piece, Paul Graham talk about creating startups during recession times and bad economy perspective. Hereafter I gather some of the main ideas:
The economy is obviously bad and common-sense may suggest that it is a bad idea to start new businesses such as start-ups. Graham claims that it is neither a bad nor a good time to adventure the creation of a technology start-up. The state of economy doesn’t matter.
The success of the startups are based mainly on the quality of the founders. Economy is just minor. What is important is the Who and the how, not the when. Technology progress are independent from the economy shape. A good idea should be exploited “ic et nunc”. Waiting is missing the train. However one of the issues in ignoring the economy condition is that investers are more reluctant to invest, even though its common sense to by when times are bad and sell when it’s good. But founders have to adapt. previously you would have to convince that your startup was viral, next you would have to convince that your “startup is recession-proof”. To make it recession-proof, its like anytime before: run it as cheaply as possible in order to be difficult to kill because you ran out of money.
An advantage of bad time is that it lowers the competition; everyone else is cowering. Founders are ultimately like investors. They should invest in their own business when time is bad to make profit when it gets better. However its difficult to say that the advantages such as lack of competition can outweigh disadvantages such as cowering investors. Nevertheless remember that what matters are people.
Why do I blog this? I’m in the very last sprint of my Ph.D work and the idea of going independant is of course appealing. However I did not yet seriously thought about opening a startup. Probably because despite what Graham says, it’s not only the people that matters, but the ideas as well. However even though it could appear as a commonsense, it’s quite thought-provoking. I would say that I’m kind of despointed by the final conclusion. As the author say it himself: “The truth is more boring: the state of the economy doesn’t matter”. Except perhaps for finding a job.
Tags: new business, recession, startup
I’m not really used to go to the myspace site very often but I went there recently and was suprised to see that they somehow constraint you to access a localized version of the social-networking site. So the main page offers for swiss residents the choice between the three main languages: “German”, “French” and “Italian”. However when clicking on of those links, it is supprising to see that the link redirect the user to the swedish version of MySpace.
The confusion between Switzerland and Sweden is not new and occurs often for north-americans but it is a utterly messed-up blooper for a big company as myspace.com and the danger of badly controlled over-localization It also reminds me the bad design choice of PayPal that provides only german language for the Switzerland based accounts, ignoring by the way half of the population of Switzerland as potential users, letting them annoyed, frustrated and desappointed.
Tags: blooper, Design, localization, myspace
I’m doing some counceling and consulting for a french campagny designing a fully online project-management and collaboration tool and one of the challenge is to reorganize the summary of the project in an overview allowing to have a quick look at the state of the project and allow users to plannify in consequence. Hence, I dove back in Stephen Few’s book “Information dashboard design”
It is worth gathering back here Few’s 13 common mistakes in dashboard design, as dos and don’ts heuristics:
- Exceeding the boundaries of a single screen
- Supplying inadequate context for the data
- Displaying excessive detail or precision
- choosing a deficient measure
- Choosing inappropriate display media
- Introducing meaningless variety
- Using poorly designed display media
- Encoding quantitative data inaccurately
- Arranging the data poorly
- Highlighting important data ineffectively or not at all
- Cluttering the display with useless decoration
- Misusing or overusing color
- Designing an unattractive visual display
Recently, besides the “Sterlingian-inspired” elucubrations about the future of the European politics and the potential role the ambitious french president will play in, the now traditional “parallel-monologue” sessions with F. Kaplan are mainly turning around the entertainment industry. It made me think about the evolution of the video-game industry these past 5 years. I came to the conclusion that the subtle change in the industry and video-game consumption can be characterized by a polarization of the game consumption in terms of pace and duration. On one hand, there are the massively online games with their loads of hardcore gamers and the never ending game experience. The model here is to create addiction in order to justify monthly billing of subscription to sets of online services. World of Warcraft, Age of Conan and the highly anticipated and recently released Warhammer online, fall in this category of games that place their bet on long lasting session of game consumption behaviors.
On the other hand, there is this emerging tendency assembled under the umbrella reference of “casual-games” where the pace of the consumption has shifted to the other extreme, emerging and evolving in a close relation to the way the new generation consume all sort of media, as well as the new model imposed by the social-networking services.
Melissa J. Perenson from PC-Word, puts it as follows:
“Five years ago we didn’t have Facebook, MySpace, YouTube. [Kids'] consumption of entertainment has changed–their tolerance is shorter and shorter and shorter. Their whole world is a screen,” Olin says. “Game makers are trying to reflect the world around them, and as such, they’re creating online play patterns that fit the short rhythm of today’s world.”
For example, not everyone is willing or able to commit 25 minutes to scale a virtual hill and reach another. So some game developers set up shorter tasks, or set a sequence of smaller actions that lead to the hill. “That reflects the immediacy of the real world.
She extends the reasoning by saying that this model of casual games is changing the shape of the gaming industry, especially the console games that are more and more designed in a “parceled” way, allowing in the mean time casual gamers and regular gamers to experience the game according to their own rhythm. I strongly believe that this scalability is the Key to adapt to the broadest range of consumers and fully exploit the wealthy trend the gaming industry is experiencing these days: “cherishing the geek as well as the casu”
This new technology called Swype is nothing more than amazing. it allows a new paradigm of text-input for touch screens. Best is having a look on this video from Cnet recorded at the Techcrunch50.
Swype
Tags: swype, text input, touch-based interaction
A brand new startup called GenePartner based in Switzerland propose a dating service based on genetic compatibility testing. Here is the discription they provide on the website:
At GenePartner we are dedicated to help you find your ideal life partner. Our formula is based on research on hundreds of couples and analyzes the pattern of genetic combinations found in successful relationships. Using this formula we will determine the probability for a satisfying and long-lasting romantic relationship between two people.
They basically provide costumers with a gene analysis service and a genepartnerID to identify the profile on the website. The genetic compatibility is computed between users through specific criteria matching. The technology inevitably reminds GATACA and other sorts of cultural stereotypes about the future of human relation in the genetic era. I can’t help thinking about the technological potential. For instance the genetic ID could be possibily used to identify unique users (in the same way than openID for instance). I am also wondering on the socio-cultural aspects of using a genetic based matching system for dating or whatever. The first impulse would be to be scared but this is the typical form of concept that can unexpectedly become trendy and socially accepted in some cultures and countries. Beware of the eugenism that could derive…
Tags: dating service, genes, genetic ID
After reading the recent post of LukeW, the temptation to steal some of the insights have been to hard. Here is my own selection among the selection of Matthew Frederick’s good design principles from “101 Things I Learned in Architecture School.
- The more specific a design idea is, the greater its appeal is likely to be. Being nonspecific in an effort to appeal to everyone usually results in reaching no one.
- A good designer isn’t afraid to throw away a good idea. Your goal as a designer should be to create an integrated whole, not to in corporate all the best features whether or not they work together.
- An effective oral presentation of a project begins with the general and proceeds toward the specific.
- Limitations encourage creativity. Never rue the limitations of a design problem… within those limitations lies the solution to the problem.
- Figure-ground theory states that the space that results from placing figures should be considered as carefully as the figures themselves.
- Beauty is due more to harmonious relationships among the elements of a composition than to the elements themselves.
- Engineers tend to be concerned with physical things in of themselves. Architects are more directly concerned with the human interface with physical things.
- An architect knows something about everything. An engineer knows everything about one thing.
- True architectural style does not come from a conscious effort to create a particular look. It results obliquely –even accidently- out of holistic process.
- “Science works with chunks and bits and pieces of things with the continuity presumed, and the artist works only with the continuities of things with the chunks and bits and pieces presumed.” –Robert Pirsig
- “A proper building grows naturally, logically, and poetically out of all its conditions.” –Louis Sullivan
- “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context –a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” –Eliel Saarine
An exciting news on bbc reports on a new groundbreaking first results of a Japanese research team about integrating computing and sense of touch (haptics). Takayuki Iwamoto and colleagues use ultrasound waves to simulate the touch sense in the air for virtually simulated objects.
Sound is a pressure wave, meaning that as the inaudible sound waves from each of the transducers interfere, they can create a focal point that is perceived as a solid object.
The team’s prototype system includes a camera which tracks the position of a user’s hand and shifts the output from the transducers to move the focus around with the hand. The result is a feeling of tracing the edge or surface of the virtual object.
At the moment, the system provides a small force only in the vertical dimension, but the team is improving the geometry of the array and the amount of power it can produce so that future devices will provide a stiffer feel and more contoured objects.
The system is obviously of a great interest for the video game industry that strive for a decade now to provide sensory feedback with more or less success (e.g. the vibrating pads). The advantages are that it could be touched by both hands and by multiple people at the same time. The method is clearly revolutionary compared to existing haptic methods using mechanical arms or exoskeleton technics. In this case, ne real heavy hardware is needed. The next step is obviously to improve the device in order to produce realistic shapes and textures. However the only limitation would be the amount of force and by extension resistance the technologies permits.
Why Do I blog this? I am wondering how in the near future, technologies introducing the touch beside the visual and auditive channel, would influence the interaction between human and computers. The technique also raises a lot of questions in terms of interaction design. A great amount of ideas can be generated on the interaction level to compensate the technology limitation by playing on the interaction simulation and human-machine configuration level. One of the interogation is if we would be able to act on or merely sense virtual objects. The potential of this technique still remain fuzzy to really begin generating ideas but as an ergonomy passionate and gamer, I’m definetly looking forward to know more about its potential.
Academic paper: Two-dimensional Scanning Tactile Display using Ultrasound Radiation Pressure
Tags: haptic interface, touch-based interaction, Video Games, virtual reality
Google annonced through a comic book the launch of its own web-browser called Chrome. The tool seems to be rather minimalistic so far but will obviously provide a better integration of the google tools and services as google-bar, Picasa, Gmail and so on. I am wondering about the rationale behind the launch of this browser, given the proximity of Mozilla corp. and Google to fight Microsoft. As reports John Brandon in Computerworld:
Yet, a three- or four-way race to make the best browser seems like it could be a path of destruction for Google, who was better off letting the little-guy-topple-giant concept work in their favor with Microsoft vs. Mozilla. Now they are competing with Mozilla and trying to take on Microsoft at the same time.
Or could this be a sign that Google is serious about dethroning Microsoft for consumer and business productivity?
Why do I blog this? Having a new browser, especially authored by the giant Google, surely is a major event for the web industry. My concern so far is not only about the business and political propention of this news but also the way it will impact the web industry in terms of design and ergonomy. Google is known for its straight-to-the-click philosophy and very uncluttered style. It is also a major actor in the new generation of the dynamic web. I would hope that the google-spirit will remain and that establishing a leading position will not hinder the strive for quality and simplicity that characterizes the firm.
Tags: browser, chrome, google
Mozilla Labs introduced a new experiment in web interaction paradigm to connect natural language to the Web experience called Ubiquity. the main rationale is to connect the Web with language in “an attempt to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily”.
The overall goals of Ubiquity are to explore how best to:
- Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.)
- Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone–not just Web developers–to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)
- Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility
- Extend the browser functionality easily.
A nicely done demonstration video quite efficiently presents the concept:
Ubiquity
To sum up, Ubiquity allows to pull different services by using intuitive languistic keywords introduced in a command-line window. Hence it allows to easily experience rich web-services such as google-maps, wikipedia, translation services web-mail service etc. without switching between them. I will probably test the prototype ASAP and further provide details about the ergonomy and interaction aspects; until then, have a look at the video.
Tags: Interaction paradigm, Mozilla labs, Ubiquity, web 2.0, web-services
