Harri Haanp Kirkkotie 380 01820 Klaukkala

Essay

8.1.2012

Steve Jobs did not make the world better...yet Place: Arcada Future makers controlling the power of mind YLE broadcasted Akuutti-programme on 3rd of January 2012. It included one segment, which was about controlling the computer through the power of mind. This was due to a French product, Open Vibe. With this software, the tester was able to give commands to the computer and the actions followed on the screen. As an example, there was a test person, who tried the machine for the first time. He was able to move the ball to the left and to the right on the screen only by thinking the directions of the movements. This programme raised a question whether this is science fiction or reality. As a matter of fact, the idea or the product is not the latest innovation, because I met people, who were developing similar product in 1998, in Los Angeles. Back then, I visited their company and they presented me this innovation and persons who were testing this product. I started to wonder what incredible results we could accomplish with this software, for example in media production. If we could apply this software to editing, the editor would create cuts only by visualizing the pictures in the right order. In theory, this would mean only looking once at the footage and the outcome would be a finished cut. With this perspective, this thought starts to sound more like fiction than the simple ball moving back and forth in the screen. However, this raises additional questions such as, to who would be able to control this kind of software and how this kind of user interface should be designed so that the controlling would be even possible. One world changing visionary came close to this idea. I just finished reading the biography of Steve Jobs. This six hundred pages book revealed well the Apple founders attitude towards the design and user-friendly experience. He changed engineerbased production purely to the design based production. The task of the engineers was literally to change the technique needed in the frames of design. As a result, a user-friendly interface or actually user experience was created. The Apple product brand does not carry that cultic overtone anymore like it used to do a decade ago. Nowadays, the whole product family of Apple has changed as well ordinary people as the creative sectors professionals working habits into a better direction. How these two things are linked, is a matter, which I will put emphasis on this essay. Keep it simple stupid This sentence is something that you can hear many times when somebody is telling a story. It means that the content and the story have to have to maintain a logical and comprehensive purpose. The purpose is to tell a straightforward story, which has a beginning, the middle and the end. The story has to keep the viewers interest through these steps. Usually, it helps the storyteller, if the purpose of the story can be told with one sentence. The purpose, which is presented through the main character, has to be clear, constantly visible and the antagonist, who resists this purpose, have to be

very strong and potentially evil. The great drama can be simply created between the main characters goal (e.g. saving the world) and the antagonists goal (destroy the world). The viewer understands clearly what he/she has watched and knows what to expect. This raises the interest towards the story and keeps the viewer watching. I dare to claim, that this phenomenon applies to all media products. When creating Apples new products, Steve Jobs emphasis the same matter. Simplify the products. This product development, which simplifies the complex functions, is involved in Apples designing team, all the way from technical machines to software. The key question is the following; we are used to having three functions, is there a way to make it only one function in the future. In my opinion, mindreading based futures user interfaces are crystallized in this thought. We must start to think like Jobs in the future, applying his obsession of creating pure, valuable and simple products, which dont require manuals. Steve Jobs swear in the name of humans intuitive user experience. As the Apples success testifies, I guess he was right. Many websites draw far behind the development The way to design nowadays websites is close to begin to be convention already. At the same time, the creativeness and innovation of the websites have been stocked to the Stone Age and intuition cannot even be mentioned at the same sentence. All the functions have always been placed at the same place. Furthermore, the changes between the sites cannot be seen, e.g. when you change the site, it takes you to another dimension without any relation between these two sites. This relation can be described in Apples device with the small details used in creating the user experience. You can actually see the screen going away because of a tiny animation. This small effect describes at the same time also that the screen disappears and where it disappears. This small effect simultaneously illustrates that the screen has disappeared and precisely where. The screen does not just disappear, but the information of this action is presented to the user. This significant information helps the user to stay in the map. The previously mentioned simple purpose of the main character and the antagonist works in the similar manner, keeping the viewer in the map. The interest of the viewer is guaranteed when is kept on track and he/she is not left behind. Lets imagine the same situation where we would use a mind power controlled user interface. I guess that in the beginning, we would face the situation where we would be uncertain whether we would make actual function or something would only detach from the screen. An unstable situation creates frustration and frustration upsets people. As a result, there is a bad user experience and reaction that creates distance. Product is bad. Instead of this, with a simple intuition based design, one can create a feel of control. This feeling is created when the user stays in the map and knows where he/she went and from where he/she can come back. Staying in the map is a phrase, that I always use when working with cameramen and editors. Keep the viewer in the map. He/she controls the TV-controller and he/she does not hesitate to use it. Intuition is nonsense? For those, who are wondering and suspecting the power of intuition, I can share my own experience. I have used Nokias phones since 1998. Then I saw the news where they told that iPhone was coming to markets. Then, I noticed/discovered a news piece about iPhone coming to the market, I thought that I have to get one of those. There was nothing rational in my consumer behavior; it was just that wow feeling that Steve Jobs put/placed emphasis on all of his products. a purchase decision is made by using our emotional levels and those are formed in the limbic part of

the brain system. Ferrari is good-looking, red and goes fast. Common sense says that it is impractical in many ways, but emotionally, it would be the best buy. Clear user interface with an easy connection between the phone and the computer creates a feeling of a coherent entity, which is waiting to be used. Will to do different things and explore all the possibilities that it offers, is difficult to explain with rational thinking. Going back to Windows world would feel mostly loosing your accomplished benefits. Intuition guides, where certain function can be found. Steve Jobs says in his biography; When I went to Pixar, I noticed this great delivery line. Technology companys dont understand creativeness. They dont understand creativity. They dont appreciate intuitive thinking, such as record companys producer listens hundred of artists and makes the decision which five of them he chooses to success, only based on his instincts. Techno people thinks that creative people only lay on the beds all days and dont function with discipline, because they havent seen how motivated and disciplined people are in the company like Pixar. When following the intuition, one can rapidly achieve the path of how one should advance, for example, in a graphic user interface. Unfortunately, many times the development in this department stays insufficient. There are many reasons for this, but paradoxically mostly of them are the brakes in our way of thinking. The same power, which would enable our surfing without hands, is now wrongly tamed. With this power, the evidence against the intuition and creativeness is systematically developed. Many times rational thinking stiffens our mind flow and this guided feeling, which is also called intuition, cannot listen or wont be listened. Change of thought examples in WEB-interfaces In the previous chapter, I disrespected some Internet webpage user interfaces. The development of the designs has been left in the 90s. When I watch some of the websites, it occurs to me that the user interface has formed almost a convention. a header in the top of the site, and massive amount of links in the left hand side. In the worst-case scenario, while I am browsing on the Internet pages aimed to reach millions of people, I must use the search engine in order to get the contact information of the technical support! The pages are full of jargon and text examples, because the producers of these websites base their business of the amount of the pages created for their clients. Besides, many websites are lacking any imagination and are simply boring, like the PC computers made by several manufactures before, (and still are) Apples products. Like the world will be drawn to this plastic crap to be used only once, the Internet will be full of useless bits without any greater function. In my opinion, the thinking should be changed from natural resources consumptive mass production into a more unique and design based production, which is serving the right needs. This principle should take into account of when producing Internet interfaces. Consumer based thinking is the starting point for this change. What is the information that I need to get from this website. Believe it or not, visitors time is valuable and he/she doesnt want to spend it on the websites that are not designed to accelerate their daily routines. Internet designer pioneers have started to come around. Finnish Internet service hitlantis.com, is the result of the Cognitive maps Ltd. called company. Behind this striking called company, is the group of people behind this company are professionals working in the Finnish music industry. Instead of text piles and endless links, they have brought the content into one page. This one page contains the participation of thousands of visitors, and the whole plot of the website at the same time. Not a bad idea. As a matter of fact, I think this is a great performance.

The goal of the webpage is simply the following:, the most popular band is more visible than the others. This scenario presents implicit antagonist (other bands) and the reward. Goal is to be more visible than the other bands. I think this service provides a good foresight into the direction where the media is heading toward. Visitors moves into centralized easy to use services, the easier they are to use, and the more popular they will be. Design combines with engineering Simple, intuitive and unique product is the way of the future; whether it is the service, user experience or physical product. Nowadays, one can still see, for example, different kind of Internet TV- start-ups which totally lack this designing dimension. Instead of using creative design/Instead of being creative, these start-ups copy existing traditional websites. Nothing makes them stand out from the mass. This is repulsive for the users and therefore they cannot reach the critical mass. With the adequate amount of visitors, it is possible to obtain an economically profitable service as well. Lets think about this Open vibe concept once more, where the moves in the screen are based on our mind and the machine recognizes those electronical reactions. This mind reading could be quite challenging, if there is no story behind of the user interface. Many small stimuli would change the clear direction of the thinking and the user should concentrate very fiercely on not letting them affect the behavior. In my opinion, the mind reading can possible be utilized with full power, when the simplicity and clarification of design is realized. There is a potential danger that the whole possibility of the mind reading machine is doomed, partly because of the reason that they cannot create an easy-to-use user interface. There should definitely be visionaries among the creators, which would bring the needs of the consumer to the table. In the TV world, there are only a few producers or directors, who understands the needs of the consumers. Looking for the masters of storytelling I use TV and movie storytelling as an example, because with this field one can easily measure the interest of the viewers. In my opinion, this can be compared to any user interface and good service experience. One button, one channel, thats all. That should be the only information that the users needs. The visitor is not looking for a great adventure from the world of links; he/she is looking for content, which is easily accessible. When putting together groups of creative people, these kinds of persons and features should be considered. I am not saying that technical people, like engineers, are not significant. Of course, to create a complete and functional group; it is vital that there are different kinds of people with knowledge of all fields. Only the storytelling and the position of the creativeness have been dismissed or not enough resources has been used to locate them or to get the best benefits out of them. One must consider the functionality of many issues, such as a pitch line, a plot, the main character and the style, when making a good movie script. Likewise, the futures media services should start to think about the whole message, which is shaped by these versatile makers. Hopefully peoples media reading skills develop as a part of their basic skills, because the services that are offered to them, are formulating more and more challenging. Is this information new, is another question. When watching an older object and especially, its design and the functionality, one can state that (a careful design and skillful handicraft are being used. Sometimes, this way of working and thinking has been dismissed, especially in consumer products. Disposability and efficient production have defined the terms of designing. The product has quickly lost its worthiness and it has turned into waist in a short notice. Storytelling is designing the content

I believe that in the future, things will be different. More durable physical products, and more simple integrated media related services would be part of our everyday life. Information sources are easy to access, and more likely, one's core knowledge will be focused onto finding the right questions and it's creative use, instead of just trying to find it from intenet. There was an interesting column in the latest Mikrobitti magazine written by Kari Hintikka. He wrote about a new vision of the future titled Giant step in user interfaces. Moreover use of mouse will be replaced with fingers or pen. In the future alternatives ways to use the interface could also vary from sound recognizing, eye-, and body movement sensors to even sensors that are based on sense of touch. In his writings, Hintikka brought up such terms as multimodal interaction and haptic. Multimodal interaction means the user interface, which is based on the use of more than one sense. I find it interesting that the person, who wrote this column, did not mention anything about interfaces guided by thoughts. Maybe he thought it was too far away in the future. He also wrote about haptic devices, meaning user interfaces that are based on the sense of touch. He brought up challenges caused by the use of these interfaces that are based on senses mentioned earlier, input of the data and controlling the interface to name the two biggest ones. I'm sure that interface that is based on using only one sense at a time is more likely a waste of time. Instead of this, I think it is worth finding out the typical patterns of human behavior when they are dealing with the everyday life situations _ related to similar functions needed to the user interface. With this, I mean that if the interface requires very precise actions, it will be wise to develop a tool similar to a pen for that interface. On the other hand, all the actions that require physical movements can be best controlled by haptic and movement tracking sensors, whereas all the speed and fast reactions required interfaces can be best controlled by combining multimodal interaction of eye movement tracking and mind reading. Where it all started in my case? I'll get back to Los Angeles to the year 1998 and to the people I met there who were involved with this mind reading device. I was able to test their brain tuning computer as they called it. The idea was to shrink a piece of graphic bar located in the middle of screen, by using thoughts only. Eventually, I was able to get a clue of the whole thing, which was not to push your thoughts if you like, but to actually empty your thoughts much like when you are relaxing or even meditating! By having this Zen- type of _concentration going on in my head, I managed to keep this graphic bar shrunken all the time during the test. After the test I got my scores. Zero being the highest score, the developers of the machine had only received scores with 14 points. Mine was two. The developers invited me to see their facilities. There I learned quite a lot about brainwaves and such things. When it comes to designing new user interfaces, whether it is to iPad's or any other media device, controlling by thoughts will be a big part of it in the future.
SOURCES: Hintikka, K.2012 Mikrobitti 1/2012 kolumni s.43: Harppaus kyttliittymiss. Helsinki, Sanoma magazines Oy Isaacson,W.2011 Steve Jobs Keuruu, Otavan kirjapaino Oy. Kunelius, R.2004. Viestinnn vallassa: johdatus joukkoviestinnn kysymyksiin. <http://www.hitlantis.fi> (luettu 15.1. 2012). Akuutti YLE. 2012. Tuotanto RTBF Belgia. Suomenlielinen toteutus Turpeinen, T. Sthle.A Helsinki, Werner Sdestrm Osakeyhti.