Here is what I learned.
Creative Outlets
Addiction is the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice, so much so that cessation causes severe trauma. There’s a razor thin line between addiction and passion and I started this project questioning if I had crossed that line. My biggest fear was being identified as a workaholic – a person with no sense of self outside of my vocation because I lacked the discipline to enforce boundaries between my personal and professional selves. I thought I might be addicted to my work. Instead, I discovered through this journey I am passionate about ideas… and I learned that my ideas need outlets.
I began the project feeling blue, and was surprised at how quickly those feelings of sadness and loss disappeared once I started the 90 in 90 project. The daily ritual of giving myself the space and time to explore my thoughts was liberating. Giving form to my ideas through writing or sketching was more than fun, it was pure joy. I realized that my head was full of ideas and the 90 in 90 project gave those ideas a place to go. I soon discovered the feelings of sadness and loss I had felt were not caused by some project coming to an end – they were caused by the loss of a creative outlet.
The design profession has a built-in outlet for ideas – but projects and professional work is riddled with boundaries and constraints. So many ideas feel abandoned and left on the cutting room floor. After three years of working in the mobile industry, there were tons of ideas that I had thought I’d abandoned because they didn’t fit into a project. I hadn’t abandoned them, though. Those ideas were trapped in my mind, left to haunt and torture me - stuck, unexplored, undocumented, unborn with nowhere to go. I’ve realized that ideas belong in the world. The act of writing them down and giving them form gave my ideas somewhere to go - it gave them a sense of life and vibrancy; a movement and velocity. Ideas need a space to be explored, shared and built on – and creative outlets provide the environment to do just that. Work had become my primary creative outlet and I realized I simply needed more outlets … many more.
90 Mobiles in 90 Days served as a creative outlet, but it also caused me to rediscover dormant creative outlets – drawing, photography, painting and writing – and the role they play in my life. I quickly came to realize that I *need* these outlets - these places and environments to explore ideas in order to feel happy and fulfilled – for my well-being. This project allowed me to revive those outlets and nurture them. Since this project, I realized that my daily basics are sleeping, eating, exercising … and creating.
A Template for Creative Practice
Back when I studied fine art in college, I had a painting professor who assigned the class the task of painting 30 paintings in a week. Seven days and a demoralizing critique later, she told us the point of the exercise was not to produce brilliant work, but to give us a template for a creative practice. She believed in the law of averages — the more you paint, the better chance you will have at creating something great. She encouraged us to be prolific and success would follow.
When I started 90 in 90, I felt stuck. I knew I had ideas that I wanted to express and share, but I didn’t know where to begin. I wanted the ideas to be good… brilliant in fact, and the pressure I put on myself to only share good ideas became paralyzing. For a good long while, I allowed the ideas to wallow in the shadows of mind and it became the ultimate downer. Inertia set in.
Committing to creating something everyday for 90 days was daunting, but the alternative was to be held hostage by the ideas in my head. In the end, the choice was easy: sit around and feel bad, or direct that energy into something productive. Starting 90 in 90 was like taking a deep breath and leaping forward. It created momentum.
Admittedly, some of the ideas from 90 mobiles in 90 days are brilliant, others are pretty good, and some of them simply stink. Instead of getting hung up on evaluating the ideas, I focused on the practice of doing something everyday. I couldn’t predict when brilliant ideas would strike, but I realized the process and the practice of thinking about it everyday was making space for the opportunity for something great to happen. In making lots of stuff, I increased my odds of something magical happening. I became prolific.
Moreover, by committing to doing something for 90 days, I was bound to get better at it. Thinking about mobile user experience became habitualized; almost like an itch I had to scratch. This project made me a better writer. My drawing skills improved. It helped me clarify the things about mobile user experience that matter to me. It helped my find my point of view about mobile user experience.
Silencing My Inner Critic and Finding My Tribe
The initial decision to carry out this project online in a public forum was probably one of the most terrifying aspects initially. I was scared. What if my ideas were dumb? What if I write something stupid? What if everything I posted had already been thought of? Do I really have anything interesting to say? These were the questions that ate away at me until I remembered something my old figure skating coach once told me. “You are your own worst critic. Nobody is harder on you than you.” He was right. Many times throughout my life I have come face to face with my own worst enemy. I see her every time I look in the mirror because she is me.
I quickly realized that silencing that inner critic would be quite possibly the biggest and most daunting part of this challenge. If I kept the project to myself, I would be left alone to contend with that critical voice. I decided to share these ideas in a public forum instead of leave them to brutality of my own internal judge and jury.
That inner critic was quickly tempered by the encouragement of people who followed me along on this journey. People who read my blog emailed me, cheered me on with their comments and words of encouragement. My inner critic became powerless when people told me I had inspired them. In silencing my inner critic, I found my voice. With the support and encouragement of the people who followed along, I found the courage to use it.
More importantly, the ideas served as a bridge for connecting me with people who share my interests and passions. In sharing my ideas and point of view, I was connected with a tribe of people interested in nurturing, supporting and celebrating ideas about mobile user experience. This project allowed me to become part of that conversation… and part of that tribe.
Plus, the ideas just got better. Sharing my ideas with the world allowed them to have a life of their own. They were free to connect with other ideas and build into a host of other conversations. Even when people disagreed with a concept or an opinion, it started a conversation. Ideas get better with debate. Ideas get better when others are able to build on them. 90 mobiles in 90 days became less about authorship and “my ideas”, and more about contributing to a community of thought. 90 and 90 allowed me to connect to something bigger than myself – a tribe of people who are interested in building the future of mobile user experiences.
Renewed engagement with the world
In the process of coming up with an idea a day about mobile experience every day for 90 days, I became aware of where inspiration comes from. Anywhere. Admittedly and obviously, a lot of the ideas were born out of first hand experiences in mobile contexts – waiting for the bus, walking down the street, waiting at an airport. But inspiration also came from unexpected places. I was inspired by architecture, by kelp forests at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, by my niece. I never knew when inspiration would strike so I quickly learned that I needed to be open to the world – to the people and places around me – and that inspiration would follow.
As a result, this process has allowed me to forge a different relationship to the people, places and things that touch my daily life. I feel a lot more engaged with the world because I rely on it as a source of inspiration. This process has opened me up to people and conversations. I’ve become more engaged with my neighborhood, the city, with nature. This project has made me more observant and patient person. It made me more empathetic; it made me a better designer.
90 Mobiles in 90 Days started out as an exercise in creative recovery. When I started I didn’t know where it would end, I just had faith that in the practice of doing something everyday, something good would happen. And it did. I went on a creative journey, and in doing so, created a body of work that reflects the aspects of mobile user experience that I believe are important and emergent. I learned loads about myself as a person and as a designer.
When people ask me what others can learn from this project, I come back to the reasons why people take journeys of any kind. Journeys allow us to explore, they allow us to discover; they can be arduous at times, and full of surprises and fun at others. Most importantly, though, journeys provide us with understanding about ourselves and our relationship to the world. The journeys themselves are often the least difficult part – more often it’s finding the courage to start.
I started by taking it one day at a time.
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Create, disseminate, and consume.
It all comes down to those three things….
]]>Books, magazines, prayer cards, mobile phones - everyone seemed to have that object, that focus point that could serve as an anchor for when the craziness ensued. They allow us to look busy, or look away, appear distracted from the awkward social interactions or mentally take us into another space. They are the non-verbal cue that says, “leave me alone.”
The thing is, I love cities. As Adam Greenfield said, they are an ongoing experiment in human vitality. It’s interesting, though, how we use mobile technology - phones, headphones and the like - to escape the harshness of the somewhat inhuman urban experiences - like a stinky, crowded bus.
These kinds of spaces and experiences are incredibly curious to me. Surrounded by people, yet so clearly seeking isolation in technology.
As the years rolled on, my mom started teaching keyboarding skill to younger students, and when she retired two years ago, she was teaching 2nd graders how to type.
I thought of my mom when I watched this video on TechCrunch with regard to Swype, a gesture-based data entry technology.
Perhaps in the world of gestural input, technology will allow everyone to be both fast, and accurate in a mobile context.
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Today I was rocking out to Asia’s Heat of the Moment and the lyric “… how many nights you sit beside the phone” got me thinking. I wonder how many songs from the last 50-60 years reference that old but very human experience of waiting at home by the phone, hoping somebody would call? Sure, we may still wait for people to call, hope for it … but at least now with mobile phones, our desperation is liberated from the confines of our homes.
I also thought about the variations of “hanging up” - “I’m hanging up now” or “She hung up on me”. It’s a language artifact from when phones use to hang on walls. When I was a kid, my family’s phone hung on our kitchen wall and the 5 foot cord had been stretched to the brink of destruction over our desire to test the capacity of the tether. My folks have a cordless phone now and I haven’t had a landline in six years. I wonder if or when that term “hanging up” will just disappear because it ceases to have a meaning that people can relate to. How long will “hanging up” have cultural relevance?
There’s also making the phone gesture with our hand - “I’m on the phone” or “Call me”. Strangely our hands in that contorted gesture so closely mimics the shape of old landline handsets… but resembles nothing of the shape of mobile phones of today.
If these phrases and gestures go away, what will their replacements be? What gestural interfaces that we design today will become synonymous with mobile phone experiences? What device form factors will we mimic with our hands as a shorthand for mobile phone usage?
Interesting questions to consider while reveling in the magic that was once Asia….
]]>Today’s post isn’t so much about an idea, as a reflection. With only five posts remaining, I’ve selected the five most important/favorite/meaningful posts from the last 85 days:
- Kelp Forests Instead of Application Silos
- Time as an Organizing Principle
- Graham and Genevieve’s Dream Mobiles
- Mobiles and Mementos
- Organic User Interfaces
These bubble to the top as some of my favorites.
Curious which posts you folks have found particularly interesting? Let me know!
]]>So much thought and energy has been given to getting the world connected - everyone with a mobile device, or computer access. In the past, and still to some extent today - being connected is for the privileged. What will happen when free and ubiquitous ad-driven networks will be pushed into every crevice of society? When people can get WiFi access on the top of Everest?
I think the future will be about choosing your level of connectedness and controlling personal data and information. Status won’t be about connecting. Today, poverty is about anonymity and lack of access - access to economic systems, political systems, support systems. In a future where everyone is connected, will that still be true or will it be about dis-empowerment of information.. a lack of control and understanding of how data is used? Imagine a future where privilege and status is shown through the ability to disconnect completely from communication channels. What a strange inversion.
Thank you, Adaptive Path.
]]>Mirjana brought up a good point in that the lion’s share of mobile device features, applications and services are centered around productivity, entertainment - all about doing stuff.
My two favorite iPhone applications actually have nothing to do with productivity or entertainment. They’re apps that remind me to slow down. Whenever I’m feeling stressed out or can’t sleep, I turn on Ambiance and set it to “waves”. There is nothing more relaxing than the sound of the ocean. I’m also a fan of the Koi Pond app - when the day is getting the best of me, it’s my little moment of Zen.
So much of what we design is about filling time with stuff to do…. there’s something to be said for creating things that provide experiences that facilitate pause and reflection.
Gestural interfaces, location-based services, micro-applications and social address books are all pointing toward new trends that I believe will revolutionize the way we think about interfaces - a revolution that will be lead through the tangible interfaces developed in the mobile space.
It’s easy to get caught up in the fanfare of each - and they individually are worthy of discourse and consideration. However, the common theme they share is the concept of connections between stuff - relationships - the dotted lines between people, objects, places and data.
I’ve written before about my interest and … well, frankly, my love affair with the idea of organic interfaces. I am intrigued by interfaces that are fluid, extensive, and anticipatory - interfaces that inherently understand and embrace the relationships between stuff in the world. Social address books as an organizing principle are a tangible instantiation of an emergent and important trend for mobile interactions. Mobile interfaces of the future will be less about finding and sorting information in application silos, and more about the connections between people, data and places.
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Traveling to a foreign country invariably heightens your awareness of boundaries. As you pantomime your way through experiences in a country where you don’t speak the language, you learn to read the subtle cues of where you can go, what you can do - the implicit social and physical boundaries become vaguely apparent. The very act of getting on a plane is a labyrinth of boundaries - passport control lines, security lines, spaces in planes you’re permitted to be in, rules of conduct on the plane. Travel in a foreign country is an exercise in boundary navigation.
A boundary is simply where one thing ends and another begins, but physical and social boundaries govern our lives in profound ways. The door to your apartment, the curb on the street, the code of conduct in a public space, the interpersonal understanding in a relationships, how we are expected to behave at work - boundaries are everywhere.
Boundaries can be comforting but we love boundary play. Flirting, joking, humor, seduction, some might even argue engaging conversation - people who master these skills are folks who know how to push boundaries with finesse. Boundary play can be fun and engaging, but there is a subtle and unyielding line between boundary play and boundary crossing that is brutally unforgiving.
Recent travels have me thinking a lot about boundaries as they relate to mobile experiences. In his presentation at LIFT | Asia The Long Here, the Big Now, Adam Greenfield shared a visual of people riding a bus while completely engrossed in their mobile phones to demonstrate there is no sovereignty of the physical. When people use their mobile phone, they’re physically in one space but mentally engaged in a ubiquitous space. They are in the space of their mobile device.
I’ve written before about the problematic and pervasive greedy mobile interfaces and how they require disengagement from the world for use. Mobile interfaces become the boundary we must cross to access the digital world. If mobiles are *the* ubiquitous computing device, the boundary between the physical and digital worlds is abrupt and requires a too much cognitive energy to cross and maintain. Sending a simple text message can feel more like using a coin operated crane to fetch a toy than a seamless interaction.
How do we make that boundary crossing easier? The visually greedy interface is one culprit, but certainly not the only one. I think there is something to this notion of boundary play that we can learn from. What are the learnings from experiences like flirting, humor, and conversation that can be applied to the interfaces we design? How do we make boundary crossing feel subtle and seamless instead of arduous and abrupt.
What made LIFT special for me was the focus and sensitivity to the social impact of new technologies. I leave the experience more mindful of the impact mobile technology can have on people’s lives and thankful to be contributing to the mobile field.
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Yesterday, while attending one of the breakout sessions at LIFT | Asia, an interesting discussion around assumptions emerged - a discussion that has had my mind a buzz since. Scott Boone, a law professor, gave a talk entitle Control issues in highly computer-mediated environments. Scott made some powerful points about the possible implications of ubiquitous computing on the rights of individuals. His perspective was clearly U.S.-centric, and one attendee asked what the implications might be for Koreans. Obviously, they would be different. The U.S. is fixated on our individual rights because they are a table stake of our culture. Koreans have a different set of values.
Scott highlighted that as much as we consider technology as a science centered around engineering or the programming of bits, technology is a cultural practice. Adam Greenfield added that while ubiquitous computing presents itself as global, it is profoundly local.
Take the Google search example. Somebody somewhere in the Googleplex made the decision to map language to an ISP and automatically localize the content. But wrapped in that decision is the assumption that people in that area serviced by that ISP will all speak Korean.
The implicaitons of these types of assumptions are profoundly significant in a mobile context. It points to a deep and fundamental need to understand the culture and values for the intended users of the products and services we design.
]]>Here’s the info:
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