1. THOUGHT AND LEADERSHIP!
If the goal is: MAKE THE PRODUCT USER-CENTERED
- Then I would engage the entire team to go on Field Visits and adopt a User Centered
Development UCD methodology. Everyone contributes so there is real buy-in.
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If the goal is: BE A REAL START UP WITH A START UP MENTALITY
- Then I would bring the developers into the room, and allow observational data to inform an
understandable, Iterative, Test Driven Development TDD or BDD process.
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If the goal is: TO EXPAND THE DEMOGRAPHIC
- Apple is the most important company on the planet. From Brand, Engineering, Design, User
Experience, the world is paying attention. I would have us develop for the iPad as the
central responsive development target, even if we had to maintain or farm out a separate
track to maintain a Windows application. Apple is releasing OSX Yosemite and iOS 8 as CEO
Tim Cook attempts to step out of Steve Jobs shadow. And he isn’t kidding. Plus, most
importantly: the Beatles are on iTunes.
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WRITING APPS AT INFORMATION DEMOCRACY
I watched a Forbes interview with Qlik CEO Lars Bjork with David Kirkpatrick of Techonomy.
Bjork spoke about the “Democratization of Information”. About Agile, User-centric
development and about wanting to get away from the old “build everything from the center”
paradigms, at least with Qlik.
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Kirkpatrick: Do you have fisherman customers?
Björk: Yes, we do. We have fisherman customers. We have police as customers. We
have surgeons as customers… I think the democratizing of decision-making is also
something that’s playing in here. A large organization is going to benefit tremendously
from empowering more people to make smart decisions, rather than a few at the top.
Kirkpatrick: So you’re trying to really position for a world of collaboration?
Björk: Absolutely.
There are a lot of small businesses, teams, people with ideas that are not particularly business-
like in their demeanor. They use iPads, not PC’s. On a train or a Starbucks, not in an office.
Maybe they don’t wear suits. Artists, musicians, performers. But students, researchers,
engineers, teachers, who cannot relate to the corporate flavor, the charts and graphs.
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Thing is though, these young-minded people are our new demographic. And they have
higher standards than their predecessors. They expect much more out of graphics and
visualization than previous tools could give them. That is why they are not using them.

2. Hey, I’m a musician. Had a couple of lousy record deals. The music industry has been in quite a
tailspin lately. In fact, if you don’t come out of the box multiplatinum, then your are dropped
even before they pick you up.
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There are people out there who see this, who love music, who want to form a new kind of
label. Not the old hat. They want to create the new paradigm. A new future that people would
just eat up.
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“How would you like to interact with information? How would you like to present
that information to yourself?” -Lars Bjork CEO Qlik
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USING LEARNING MODELS TO MORPH OUR UI
Maybe I am stretching here but, why do engineers ask others to learn their UI, their way of
doing things? What about the user’s mental image of what they do? Where are the Event
Listeners for them? Can we pick up on that? Shouldn’t we “Seek first to understand, then to be
understood”? ( Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey )
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The opening lines of Edward Tufte’s Visual Display of Quantitative Information says,
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“Excellence in statistical graphics consists of complex ideas communicated with
clarity, precision, and efficiency. Graphical displays should: show the data, induce
the viewer to think about the substance rather than about the methodology…”
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The Cartographic Mind
When learning an instrument, a student develops not only a cognitive map of the instrument
as it relates to sound and the scale, language and so forth, they are engaged in kinesthetic
learning. When a person is engaged in something they are passionate about they are forming
a landscape that is cognitive and kinesthetic.
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When we as Designers are asking them to set aside their picture, their own experience to learn
our UI, then can we really say we have done our job? As Designers of things, virtual or not, we
should go to them. We should develop the adaptability to go to them.

3. THE MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR AS ANALOGY
By means of introduction (or review), the MBTI Wiki opens with,
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“The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to
measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.[1][2][3] These preferences
were extrapolated by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers from the typological theories proposed by Carl
Gustav Jung, and first published in his 1921 book Psychological Types (English edition, 1923[4]). Jung theorized
that there are four principal psychological functions by which we experience the world: sensation, intuition, feeling,
and thinking.[5] One of these four functions is dominant most of the time.
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Will it suffice to say that is
Jung and his lineage could
create make sense out of
personality structures, Agile
Development teams could
perform enough analysis to
arrive at a workable platform
for an Adaptable UI.
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We could piggyback on the
research, if you can pardon the
mental image.
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If the tests are to be believed, I am an ENTP. Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceptive. Here
is what the (edited) article says about the ENTP.
ENTP characteristics[edit]
The ENTP has been described variously as the innovator,[10] the
originator,[11] the lawyer,[12] the inventor,[2] the explorer,[13] and
the visionary.[12] ENTPs also fall into the general categories of
thinkers, rationals, and engineers.[14]
Myers-Briggs description[edit]
Using their primary function-attitude of extraverted intuition (Ne),
ENTPs are quick to see complex interrelationships between
people, things, and ideas. These interrelationships are analyzed in
profound detail through… introverted thinking (Ti). The result is an
in-depth understanding of the way things and relationships work, and
how they can be improved. To the ENTP, competence and
intelligence are particularly prized, both in themselves and in other
people.
ENTPs are frequently described as clever, cerebrally and verbally quick, enthusiastic, outgoing, innovative, flexible, loyal,
and resourceful. ENTPs are motivated by a desire to understand and improve the world they live in. They are usually
accurate in sizing up a situation. They may have a perverse sense of humor and sometimes play devil's advocate,
which can create misunderstandings with friends, coworkers, and family. ENTPs are ingenious and adept at directing
relationships between means and ends. ENTPs devise fresh, unexpected solutions to difficult problems.

4. However, they are less interested in generating and following through with detailed plans than in generating ideas and
possibilities. In a team environment, ENTPs are most effective in a role where they can draw on their abilities to offer
deep understanding, a high degree of flexibility, and innovative solutions to problems. The ENTP regards a comment like
"it can't be done" as a personal challenge, and, if properly motivated, will spare no effort to discover a solution.[citation
needed]
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Other than the misguided impression that it makes me sound like some sort of genius, I have
to say, there are some accuracies here.
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Anyway, I am getting off the point. The point being, that IF THEY CAN DO IT, WE CAN DO IT.
We can build an Adaptable UI that builds on the users mental map of what they are passionate
about. It is no longer acceptable to say, we cannot know what is in peoples heads. Because
apparently, we can.
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User Affordance
The first lines of Designing for People, the Industrial Designer Henry Dreyfuss, wrote:
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“ Somewhere deep in the shadowy past, primitive man, desiring water, instinctively
dipped his cupped hands into a pool and drank. Some of the water leaked through
his fingers.
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In time he fashioned a bowl from soft clay, let it harden, and drank from it; attached
a handle and made a cup; pinched the rim at one point to make a spout, creating
a pitcher.
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Intuitively, this prehistoric man was following the same principles of utility that guide
today’s industrial designer who creates for mass production. ”
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The user affordances are NOT what we pontificate to the users; the user affordances come
from the users. We must be perceptive and analytical enough to perceive what they are.
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I believe it is time to move forward. The future is calling.