DGPis40 Bill Buxton talk

Here is a talk that I attended from the DGPis40 reunion conference for U of T's Dynamic Graphics Project, which turns 40 years old!

40 Years: Almost Enough Time to Make a Difference
Bill Buxton
Microsoft Research
www.billbuxton.com

Bill started his stints at DGP as a student but he was not a Computer Science student but a musician. Today, he probably would not be admitted as a Computer Science student. His talk today is based on whether Could DGP Happen Today? He is reviewing 40 years of DGP. A lot of the technologies of icons, Palm’s Graffiti, teletype, all came from beginnings of DGP. Also, Bill is mentioning that another icon is the Academy Award, which DGP has probably amassed more based on its alumni and the lab compared to other schools, which is strange he says because since DGP is in the Computer Science department.

What is the real accomplishment of the past 40 years? Bill worked on a computer that is now in the National Research Council (NRC) archives. NRC made a mouse in 1968, probably the second mouse based exactly from Doug Englebart who invented the mouse before PARC came up with the mouse in the 1970s. Bill worked as a musician and an artist, and started contacting Leslie Mezei at U of T (who is the founder of DGP). While working at DGP, he felt worthy of respect and became colleagues with others. If you wanted to do something, you could make it happen. Compared to other environments, you are dirt and you have to show respect to others until you have paid your dues. At DGP, people are challenged and are questioned and are proven to be wrong, because this means you will have learned something. DGP has published many papers at SIGCHI and SIGGRAPH more than any other academic and research lab during the first 20 years of its incarnation.

DGP was a self-organizing group because it was based on communal responsibility, he gives the analogy of filling concrete. Once students graduated, others came to fill the hole, so there was some kind of social contract. There are three generations of people in the CHI Academy, the only university to do so (Bill Buxton, Brad Myers, and Ron Baecker considered the grandfather in this lab). Bill is talking about The Long Tail a book by Chris Anderson, in the old economy you only had the beginning or head of the tail, whereas now in technology the most interesting opportunities happen in the long tail. A lot of work is done in the beginning of the tail in innovation and doing research. It takes 20 years from innovation to commercialization which is the exact number of years before a patent gets expired.

According to Bill, as academics, we are on a slippery slope and the slope is tilting. According to the New York Times in December 2007, corporate research labs are going away. There were few PhD students working in industry research than in 1980. There is no and will not be a Silicon Valley in Toronto or Canada. According to Bill, the DGP lab is absurd compared to other academic and corporate research labs. DGP represents integrity and values, productivity and influence around the world. Computers and technologies need to have as much engagement and review and criticism similarly to art and literary review. We need to think about culture and society within technology.

One question that was asked is how to bring the culture of DGP to corporate research labs like Microsoft Research that focuses on patents before publications. Bill answered that 80% of the work is on cultural change, the other 20% is the actual work. In his opinion, Microsoft Research has more academic freedom than any other university, which was an interesting comment in my opinion seeing that you would think Microsoft would absolutely tie all research back towards Microsoft products. Which is not to say that Microsoft doesn't do that of course, Microsoft Live Labs is exactly doing that, being a industrial lab to foster innovation within its MS products. What I got out of the talk is that there needs to be open Research, research with a capital R, not just some wishy washy research that is just for the benefit of the company and not the rest of the world. That is how you make a difference.

TorCHI talk: Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton

Tonight, Bill Buxton from Microsoft Research is at U of T for the TorCHI talk, talking about his book "Sketching User Experiences".



If you're at the talk, they're selling his book and having an autograph session!

The title of his talk is Design, Design Thinking and Sketching. Bill provides a new way of thinking to design, which is badly needed in industry and business. According to Bill, there are problems in new product development in companies, and frustrated designers within organizations. There should be a chief design officer in the company that works with the chief technical officer, to articulate the requirements for design to translate design technology into products. Bill's book is designed for managers of companies to read, rather than for designers. Design sits within the ecosystem, the design life needs the physical infrastructure. Designers and usability experts need to understand executives, there needs to be cross cultural people to build the bridge.

In the product development process, there is no phase 0 which is the design before building the product (engineering). What is the product going to look like, is it feasible to build, why do we want to build? Bill just kidded around that he was able to publish his book based on the realization that design needs to happen before the engineering phase. We can then think of product design just like digging for artefacts like in archaeology. Design is not a separate phase, it permeates within all the development phases in engineering and also in sales. In fact a product should begin to be developed just like a film is made, and before it is green lighted. There needs to be a business plan, a list of people who are the "actors" in the product, how much the product will cost, etc.

So what is design? Sketching is a method for design, which is used in different types of design like graphics design, fashion design, and industrial design. The design spaces needs to be explored by looking at alternatives. For example, he gave an example of drawing a phone which he claimed most people (even the design challenged can do), drawing a phone's interface (which is much difficult), and drawing the experience of using the phone (which is the ultimate goal in product design). According to Bill, we are going from a materialist design to experiential perspective of design.

So what makes a sketch? First, the sketch is free-hand drawn. Second, the lines are not complete. Third, the sketch is not finished, it is open-loop rather than closed-loop. What is the anatomy of sketching? Sketching is about opening doors, not closing doors, so no higher resolution is required to communicate the intended purpose/concept. Sketching is meant to suggest and explore, you should not have to be complete the first time. Ambiguity is the most important part of design. If you want to get the most out of a sketch, you need to leave big enough holes. If you start to put more detail and close the imagination, then this is not a sketch but more of a memory recording. According to Bill, design is like a funnel, you have a million ideas and then you start reducing ones and throwing them out, until you come out with the idea that becomes the product. There is a continuum between design and usability, from sketch to prototype, along the investment and time axes.

Great talk, as always, Bill is a good speaker, and I think a good example of how you can have a good career in academia, research, and industry.

On Technorati: sketch, Bill Buxton, design, user experience, TorCHI