Tim Berners-Lee says the web is in its infancy. We have only just begun to see how the internet is being used to overcome distance, share information, and connect people together. The future web, Sir Tim says, will put “all the data in the world” at the fingertips of every user.

Whilst desktop and laptop computers have defined how we experience the web, I believe that the benefit of the web is best when you can use it anywhere. McGuire’s law is that the value of any product or service increases with its mobility.

So, the mobile web…

Mowser

In many ways, I think Mowser was a great idea. I also think that in many ways, Mowser missed the point. This is aknowledged by its creator, Russell Beattie, in his leaving letter, which was widely and wildly misinterpreted after it was published. Beattie’s leaving note, far from being doctor’s autopsy notes for the mobile web, is actually full of vision and hope for what the mobile web should be like.

In a way, it heralds the death of a certain kind of aenemic mobile web, and one we didn’t want in the first place. Mowser’s failure, although sad, should help to guide others working in the shaping the future of the mobile web:

It’s not the mobile web, it’s the web…?

The mobile web should exist as a term. But it should not refer to a different web. We can’t deny that how we access and use the “mobile” web is different from how we might use it at home. This does not refer just to the device that the web is viewed on; it refers also to what we use the web for.

We need to make mobile web experiences better. To do this, we need to try and identify how we use the web outside of our homes; and how this is different from how we use the web inside of our homes. E.g., we might not want to do intensive research whilst out shopping; but at home, we might meticulously research and compare reviews for a restaurant.

Despite this, we cannot, and definitely should not, separate the web we view on our laptop from the web we view on our mobile device. Tim Berners-Lee is vehemently opposed to .mobi domain names for this reason:

I was tagged by Dave. So, here it is. It’s my solemn vow not to publish anything like this again. I am not tagging anybody, so I’m breaking the rules.

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged

8 random things about me

1. I was once a furry. An anthropomorphic cat, to be specific, in the game Furcadia, where I was also on the game staff. I assure you that I was the innocent kind of furry who read Narnia as a kid, and didn’t fully understand all the implications of being a furry until quite recently.
2. I’m a pescetarian. I have been since I read ‘Diet for a New America‘ by John Robbins. This was in 2004. After reading the book I was vegan for a month. Then I visited a friend’s house where her mother made me a tuna baguette for dinner. I was too polite to say anything, so I ate it. That tuna baguette defined my eating habits since. I am grateful because I love fish, and I’m currently developing a taste for sushi. It helps me refrain from meat, by having a little of what I like.
3. After feelings of intense jealousy towards existing residents, I moved to Brighton (effusively self-documented). I fell in love with it much in the same way I fell in love with California in 2003: immediately and passionately. I love the breezy, laid-back atmosphere, the quirky cafes, the friendly people, the proximity to the sea, the sunshine. Ahhh…
   
4. I’m a word snob. I considered dropping out of my degree in graphic design to pursue a degree in English Literature. It didn’t make sense, but I luxuriated in the idea of lounging in libraries reading Shakespeare, Eliot, Joyce, Conrad, Dante, Proust, Goethe… and I still luxuriate in the idea. Written communication, whether in print or on screen, remains a major passion — perhaps, just perhaps, the medium as much as the message.
   
5. In a family of scientists, I’m an artist. My dad and grandfather are physicists. In one Christmas dinner I learned a considerable amount about how a spinning top remains spinning.
   
6. I have a high-frequency hearing loss and can hear men slightly better than women.
7. I had five consecutive pet hamsters, all imaginatively named Hammy, and all with distinct personalities.
   
8. Can I please stop now?
   

Last night I sampled some incredible food at Brighton restaurant Terre à Terre. For all its excellent reviews, it requires a degree of open-mindedness. I took my mother and asked her if she wanted to check the menu before we sat down to a meal. She dismissed it saying she was sure it’d be fine. Big mistake! As our plate of tapas arrived, so did the look of horror in her eyes. To be honest, you can’t blame her — the food looks tricky, and the menu sounds complicated.

The highlight of the meal was parmesan doughnuts and a mushroom cappuccino — the parmesan doughnut is basically a “hot garlic butter doughnut” that is rolled in Parmesan, and the mushroom cappuccino is a “warm port enriched mushroom custard topped with truffle cream and porcini dust”. It’s delicious. The tapas was delicious too, but I have no idea what I was eating.

Why am I reviewing food on a design blog? I think that Terre à Terre is a brilliant example of experience design: starting afresh with ingredients and not following any established convention with their food. They are totally unique, playful and creative, and an example to experience designers everywhere.

I’m a new student of “Experience Design”. Can you really design experiences?

One of the books I discovered in my flat a few months ago was the best-selling ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ (by Stephen Covey). The book advocates the idea of a life that is governed by “principles”, by which positive outcomes are the natural product of this way of living, and not necessarily the aim. So according to Covey, a life led by positive principles leads to positive outcomes. A similar approach can be taken towards design, in terms of experience. The idea is similar: a designer focused on human experience of the finished object, rather than “designing an object”, will produce superior work.

I’ve just started to read Bill Buxton’s ‘Sketching User Experiences’. Here’s a quotation from Buxton’s website:

Ultimately, we are deluding ourselves if we think that the products that we design are the “things” that we sell, rather than the individual, social and cultural experience that they engender, and the value and impact that they have. Design that ignores this is not worthy of the name.

For me this is a totally new and very exciting way of looking at design.

We live in terms of experiences. We are surrounded by objects that give us an experience. Le Corbusier’s opening line in his 1923 book, ‘Vers une architecture’ (towards a new architecture), is “a house is a machine for living in“. I think this is a good approach to architecture. A house is a machine for living in, and a house is populated by various other man-made things such as a bed, a bookcase, a bedside table, a lamp. We experience a lamp when we attempt to turn it on and off. We experience a bed when we lie on it. We experience a bookcase when we put our books in it. If we can identify the components of what makes an experience good, then experiences are designable.

Objects we choose to surround ourselves with are, on the whole, man made; and they are objects which we have selected ourselves. We select these objects because they are easy to use, cheap, practical, aesthetically-pleasing, or all of these things. In other words, we choose to surround ourselves with objects that give us a pleasant experience. A designer who designs with this experience in mind is looking at the top of the hierarchy of everything a designer should be thinking about. Design exists to give human beings a good experience, whether it’s an entire city, a map to navigate the city, a dictionary, or a clear dictionary typeface.

I think a big enemy for designers is distraction, or approaching a problem with an existing agenda or idea in mind. Role-models (i.e. famous graphic designers, artists, architects) and inspirational objects (i.e. examples of existing examples that you admire by famous graphic designers, artists, architects) can distract and obscure, rather than clarify and help. By focusing on experience, the designer has a clear canvas. Good experience is the aim, and it doesn’t matter how you reach this aim. It includes both function and aesthetics, as both are necessary for a good experience, and both are necessary for a good design.

Experience design is very relevant to mobile design, and even more so as the small screen attempts an increasingly ambitious portfolio of capabilities that the desktop/laptop computer can already do. Designing applications that provide the user with a delightful experience is one thing. Working out how to deal with the desktop-scaled web on a small screen is another. I’m looking forward to giving this more thought…