As much as the technologist inside me wants to see a paperless world accessed through iPad like devices there is another part of me that is uncomfortable with that concept. The uncomfortable feeling comes from my innate value of books, pens and paper. My Generation X contemporaries (i.e. born in the 1960’s and 1970’s) will happily reel off a conveyor belt of plausible reasons why we think paper and pens are here to stay, but is this really just a generation game?

So what arguments do we (Generation X) come up with?

1. Paper books are easier on the eyes and you can read them easier.
2. Paper is less fragile than electronic formats. There is less to go wrong, for instance no need to power a paper book. Also if you drop a paper book into the bath it’s cheaply replaced, the same can’t be said about the eBook reader.
3. There is an emotional pleasure in simply seeing shelves of books. There is also an intrinsic value in a book that goes beyond the contents. It’s in the cover design and material, the binding, its weight and the tactile nature of a book.
4. There is a sense of ownership in having a physical book that just isn’t there in an electronic book. There is something more permanent about paper.
5.  A sketch on the back of a beer mat can record a world changing idea. It’s the freedom to sketch anything you like anywhere on the paper that makes a paper and pen a powerful user experience. Pickup a piece of paper and a pen and you can be sketching and writing with freedom in seconds (instant on!).
6. Some people read paper books as a way to take a break from the computer screen that rules their working life. We’re in front of a computer screen all day and when you relax you just want to have a different experience.
7.  Cuddly Toy! (hint.. Google the title…)

Ok, so looking back across all of the reasons I gave above I can see counter arguments from the virtual world and to be honest the arguments for paper do seem a bit generational.

A recent study by Habbo Hotel that asked 49,000 Digital Natives a.k.a. Generation Z (born 1990’s and 2000’s) to share their views on how the internet will shape the future. The following finding suggests they don’t have the same reticence about replacing paper:

“However, whilst the TV remains a relevant and important medium to this media-savvy generation, traditional print media (newspapers, magazines and books) won’t fair as well with 55 per cent of respondents saying that they will be extinct either very soon or some day in the future. Only 18 per cent feel that printed media will always have a place.”

Generation Z have grown up with the internet and mobile devices, and they are certainly comfortable and possibly even dependent on technology. To some extent they live their lives in the virtual world and don’t see a need to get away from it. They have access to a huge source of information and it doesn’t go stale like the information in printed books. They also have a green conscience that reverses the emotional context for a paper book.

Even if the feelings that Generation X has about paper and pens has some validity, it is obvious that Generation Z will eventually shut that door. The iPad and its descendents are the vehicle for this final move to the electronic world. It makes me wonder however what will replace books, DVDs and CDs under the Christmas tree in the next decade. In the meantime my sons will be getting a number of annuals and story books from this Generation X Santa.

Happy Holidays!

Recently we ran a usability lab on a set of prototypes. We had a set of quite diverse users with different backgrounds, experiences and working environments. As always the people participating in the labs produced great feedback. I have been observing users for many years and I’m still amazed that no matter how much thought you put into personas, users scenarios and user stories while designing, during usability tests users will always come back with something unexpected or reinforce and validate the design principle you applied in a way you can’t put into words like they do; by simply ‘using it’.

The prototype designs we were testing were based on real objects. The metaphors were therefore known to all users. During the test sessions they were consistently using terminology such as ‘intuitive’, ‘familiar’, ‘natural’, ‘instinctive’… to use.

These are terms you hope users might use when testing prototypes but you are grateful when they’re being validated by perfect strangers that have never seen the prototypes before.

However, there was one user who declared within the first minute of a one hour test that the prototype was, “Obviously an analogue real-world model – I hate tools like this”.

At this point I thought should I come up with an excuse to ask them to leave the lab, come back another time since I was feeling ill, any excuse… Then you remind yourself about the HCI principle all users are users, regardless of their preconceptions, so I needed to follow through the test and record all their comments, even if they might all be negative given their opening statement…

Aside from writing observation notes and filming the session, at the end I leave users to fill in a questionnaire following the same steps of the tasks we just went through, to express in their own words without me being in the room what they really think. To my surprise by the end of the session given their original statement, this is what they concluded: “I initially thought that the use of a real-world model would limit the interface, but it actually proved to be very intuitive.”

So what started with a user session that could have been entirely negative, turned out to be the best experience of that usability lab.

Priceless.

Has anyone else noticed how much of a buzz there is around the use of consumer IT in the workplace?  Intrigued about our own situation I asked our head of IT recently what colleagues are using. I thought there may be a surprise or two hiding somewhere, or even something magic to transform my working day! His reply probably reflects what is being used in your own companies: iPhone; Skype; Google Docs; Facebook; Twitter (Tweetdeck & Hootsuite); SMS (for sending VPN authentication codes).

I then asked him about his support strategy for these consumer tools.  “Very simple”, he said, “self help unless it’s core network/ hardware/ infrastructure related – very little support is required because the products are intuitive and easy to use. There’s also a vast amount of assistance available online through knowledge bases and forums.  And, our users generally know their products better than IT.”

All of which got me thinking about software user interfaces again, and why it is that business software isn’t easier to use.  It was where we started with the development of the gDoc Fusion user interface.

If consumer stuff is so easy and fun to use, then why isn’t our day to day business software too?