Watching the Detectives

An article published (or perhaps re-published) on Gizmodo notes a "trend" toward the prohibition of surveillance of police officers. The article focuses on the use of cameras that are not necessarily connected to the Internet, and seems to be intended to stir public outrage at the desire of the government to conceal corruption and abuse of authority, but it has broader implications for the "Internet of Things."

In this sense, the phenomenon raises fundamental questions about the use of devices to collect data (video being one kind of data, and cameras being one kind of device) - and it is, at heart, a political issue, as from a functional perspective, anyone who has such a device certainly can collect data. The question is whether legislation will determine whether they have a right to do so, or whether privacy concerns (the right to be unobserved) will take precedence.

The article in question covers only one side of one argument, and it's fairly obvious that the correct conclusion is that videotaping police action is not only just, but socially beneficial in preventing the abuse of authority. But it would be interesting to cross-reference the remarks against others made by the same individuals when the cameras are turned around, and it is the state that is videotaping citizens.

And the same argument can be made, albeit with less passion, in any instance of surveillance: employers who spy on employees but prohibit employees from taking photographs in the workplace, merchants who use security cameras to observe shoppers but do not permit the same people to take video recordings inside their premises, etc. In each instance it's not merely the desire of one party to use surveillance, but to deny the same right to the other party.

Moreover, the same arguments are used by both sides. Regardless of who is videotaping whom, proponents will argue there is no expectation of privacy in most environments, that "honest" people should have no fear of being observed, and so on, whereas the opponents will argue that surveillance is an invasion of privacy, that the mere act of observation is a form or coercion, and so on.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, though it will probably take decades for there to be a legislative effort to consider the topic of surveillance in general, rather than getting tangled in the incidental details of a specific set of circumstances ... but if my guess is correct, we will return at last to the functional perspective.

Overview of Strategic Management

In general, strategy has been a thorny subject lately, largely because the word is broadly misused: anyone who has an idea, notion, or concept claims it is "strategic" - but not all ideas qualify. With this in mind, I've read a bit on the subject, and added some study notes to my site on a booklet entitled "strategic management."

It was a quick read - though as such, it skipped along like a stone, barely breaking the surface, and touching in random places, omitting much. Even so, it was worthwhile as a refresher on the topic and a method for structuring deeper exploration into each of the topics it touched upon, which I expect may have been the author's intention in putting out such a short piece of work.

The Mimesis of Depth

I was reading a chapter in a collection of academic papers about the computer-generated 3D models, and my brain went on a tangent (as it's prone to do) about the value we seem to automatically attribute to the quality of mimesis.

Specific to 3D modeling, it's generally accepted that the computer-generated model of a 3D environment that is depicted on a "flat" monitor screen is a very poor imitation of a real-life environment., and the author's point was that much improvement (and special equipment) is needed before we can realistically depict an immersive environment to the user.

What struck me is the degree to which the user is able to accept a "fake" 3D environment, and I'd suggest it's not because we are applying the perceptual skills learned in the real world, but are transferring the cognitive interpretations learned from similar two-dimensional media: paintings, photographs, and television screens.

The artist learns tricks to "fool" the mind into accepting a flat representation as a three-dimensional one: an object that is smaller is further away, as is a one that lies further along diagonal lines that converges at a horizon. A closer object throws a more distinctive shadow, and an object further away isn't as clearly discernable. If an object overlaps another, it is nearer to us.

We learn these visual cues of "closeness" and "farness" specifically to the two-dimensional representation of depth - such that when we see a highly mimetic painting of an apple, we remark that we could almost reach into the painting and pick it up. I posit that the "almost" is because, in spite of all the visual trickery, there is still a quality that is missing that cues us that what we are viewing is, in fact, a clever forgery of depth rather than actual depth.

So, in the end, the question with which I'm grappling is whether, when we see a "3d" image on a flat screen, we are recognizing it as being three-dimensional from our experiences in the physical world, or because we recognize the conventions that are used to depict depth in a two-dimensional medium.

I tend to think that it's the latter, which may explain the reason why, in spite of all the advances in 3D presentation technology, we find ourselves unsatisfied with even the most detailed and attentive imitations. No matter the degree of effort the presenter undertakes to "fool" us, we recognize the tricks, and cannot accept the mimicry, though it might delight us, for a time, to engage in the willing suspension of disbelief.

An analogy comes to mind - the distortions to the sense of taste. In this culture, and at this time, it is probably reasonable to assume that more people have tasted artificially lime-flavored candy than have tasted actual limes. So a person who recognizes the lime flavor of candy is borrowing upon his sense memory of lime-flavored candy in the past, not from his memory of ever having tasted an actual lime. In fact, if you gave him a piece candy that tasted like a real lime, he might not be able to accurately identify the flavor. Such is the problem with mimesis in the virtual medium.

I generally accept, albeit with some degree of reservations, that a good approach to design in the online media is to mimic "real world" phenomena. The reservations I have is that the online medium has significantly different capabilities and qualities than the real-world medium.

An early example I recall was a video player that attempted to use an interface that was similar to a television remote control, to enable to user to "click" through video presentations in the same way that they surfed channels. This was well before a on-screen programming guides that allowed users to scroll through lists of programs by name, and even view descriptions before making a selection.

In that instance, mimesis has worked in reverse: the television medium, which was presumed to be more familiar to users, has actually adopted navigation controls from the online medium, rather than the other way around - for no other reason than it was easier to use, and just made sense.

It also occurs to me that I have never seen a cell phone interface with a rotary dial - which was at one time the most familiar paradigm for operating a telephone. And the reason is that a rotary dial, while necessary to a physical telephone until about twenty years ago, simply didn't make sense. Like the analogy to artificial "lime" flavoring, a person presented with a rotary dial would have no idea what it was, or how to use it.

And so after that long meander, I return to the notion of creating realistic 3D environments for the Web. Is it really more convenient? Does it really make sense? For the longest time, the answer seemed a self-evident "yes" ... but the more I think about it, the less plausible it seems.

Customer Relationship Management

I've recently added study notes on an article about customer relationship management. It's nothing new, but more recent than previous material I had read on the same topic, and the article is very brief compared to the books that have been written on the topic - but it is also very matter-of fact and largely devoid of hype.

CRM was a popular notion about fifteen years ago, and like many popular notions, there was a flash of interest, but little understanding. As a result, there were many vendors that offered quick-and-dirty solutions that did little good, the net result of which was that many were led to dismiss CRM as a fad with no inherent value.

But now that the glimmer of novelty has faded, the companies that have been left standing are those who took more methodical approach and have gained ground slowly, and the potential for CRM to create competitive advantage in markets in which there has been no effective first-mover remains, making the concept worth re-consideration.

Google Fail

There's been a lot of uproar over Google's recent attempts to "wow" users with gimmickry: a playable pac-man game on the site's home page that distracted and annoyed users, and their attempt at leveling the playing field against Microsoft's "Bing" search engine by replacing the stark, white background of their home page with an image.

Users objected to both of these changes in droves, and the general reaction seems to be dismissal of the user's complaints as resistance to change. So long as that attitude persists, it can be anticipated that Google will trot out additional "improvements" until it either drives users away, or get rid of whatever executive thinks that this kind of nonsense is a good idea.

But more to the point ... it's an interesting case study in user experience. Google quickly overtook rival search engines by providing a clean interface, uncluttered by useless distractions, and by doing so, it gave users the ability to find information quickly. And now, confident that it "owns" its users and can't possibly be overtaken as the king of search (which is exactly what the companies it toppled would have said), it seems to be making exploratory steps down the very same path to ruin.

Aside of a tasty morsel of schadenfreude, there are a few lessons to be taken:

First, a "good" user experience isn't about gimmickry. It's about giving the user exactly what they need to accomplish their goals, and nothing more. Google's original site took the Web by storm because it was simple: a field to enter text, and a button to click. Aside of their logo (a necessary evil), that was it. And users loved it.

But then, things took a turn. Google added the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button and started replacing its logo with special holiday and event graphics. I can't believe that users asked for either of these things, or wanted them, or found that they made the site a better experience for them. Most users ignored them, or tolerated them, and maybe a few found them to be "cool" for at least a little while.

And that's where the problem begins. It starts with a perfectly good site that does exactly what people want, then the operator starts adding on novelties that will attract or entertain a small number, while the rest won't object too much. So long as it's low-key and not too bad, and so long as they don't cross the line, to the point where the gimmicks overwhelm the core value, why not?

The reason is fairly simple: over time, the little things add up. AltaVista and Yahoo didn't begin as "noisy" sites with a clutter of distractions - they added them incrementally, and eventually buried the core functionality of their sites in a trash heap. I don't recall that either made any major blunders, but it may have been better for them if they had - it's easier to roll back a single big mistake rather than a slough of small ones - though in either case, one big blunder or two dozen small ones both serve to do the same thing: to distract and overwhelm, and make the core functionality (the real value that attracts the users) harder to find.

In effect, Google failed to ask the critical question: when a user comes to our site, what do they want to do? There's typically only one thing - or if there are more, one is the most important. And if any "feature" or "improvement" doesn't enable the user to do that one thing better than they did before, it's simply not worth adding.

And when you consider the user's perspective, the answers become simple: when a user goes to a search engine, they are trying to find information. Does a novelty like a video game or background image help them to do that better than a site without one?

The answer is fairly obvious, and it should have been obvious to Google.