I recently purchased a desktop PC and opted for Windows 7 – and after only 2 system crashes, 2 reinstalls, and a BIOS change to the boot order so the computer wouldn’t try to boot from the USB wireless adapter – I have been merrily chugging along on my new Windows 7 adventure.

And apparently Windows wants to make sure that I don’t ever make any kind of mistake on my adventure, EVER. On this adventure they will monitor every single thing I do, and give me constant feedback about every tiny change that happens to the system while I use the computer. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing the first time I unplugged my earphones:

Really, Windows 7? Thanks for informing me of that! It is nice to have some reassurance that the headphones were indeed removed – my inferior human brain gets confused sometimes when I grasp the headphone jack with my imperfect fingers and remove the jack from the machine. It is nice to know that my eyes and my brain and my hands aren’t playing tricks on me.

And how nice! You will even give me another message informing me when I plug the headphones back in! How did I get by for the past 25 years, just “winging it” by plugging headphones into things solely by feel? Never again will I wonder what those clicks that I felt were when I plugged the jack in, or why I could hear music playing through the headphones shortly afterwards. Windows 7 – unraveling the universe’s biggest mysteries just for me!

And thanks for sharing your digital infallibility with me by distracting me from what I was doing – It really ensures that I never forget that I am using Windows 7 when you remind me that you are there every 5 minutes. I have been meaning to break that pesky workflow habit that I like to get into.

But in case a few minutes go by and you start to feel like I am not paying enough attention to you, I have a few suggestions for alerts you could throw into the rotation.

For those times when I lose control of my motor function in my right hand and simultaneously blink at the exact moment my pointer finger depresses the button without my knowledge, and the temperature is chilly enough that my hands are semi-numb and I can’t feel the click of the mouse button:

Sometimes when I push that little button on my monitor I am not sure if it worked. This one will help me remove any doubt that it was indeed turned on:

And of course a one-size fits all solution:

Seriously – just because you CAN detect something doesn’t mean it needs to be shown to users. This reminds me of a couple of Heidegger’s power phrases: “ready-to-hand” and “present-to-hand”. In simple terms for this context ready-to-hand means I can use the tool without thinking about it. Like writing with a pencil – I am focused on the act of writing. Present-to-hand means I am focused on the tool itself, like if the pencil breaks it is no longer ready-to-hand because I am focusing on it.

I am going to make a very bold statement here – I am pretty sure the point of software is to use it. But in order to use software it needs to become ready-to-hand so I can focus on my task and not the tool I am using to accomplish it. I can’t use Windows 7 to accomplish tasks if it is constantly moving from ready-to-hand to present-to-hand by showing me alerts.

But in true tech-centered design fashion, I can turn the alerts off in a settings screen – IF i am able to snipe the little wrench icon in the few seconds that the message is up. Then I am gifted with this wondrous screen:

So just because I want to unplug and plug in my headphones, or insert USB drives, or do any other number of basic interactions with my computer – I have to “select which icons and notifications appear in the task bar.” (Quite ironic that it is called a “task” bar when the default behavior of it is what prevents me from completing tasks.)

Why is the responsibility upon the user to manage all that stuff? Why would it be so hard to prioritize the necessary notifications for users to see into a list of about 30 key alerts, chop off the 28 that were added by technocrats, and then by default only show the 2 remaning CRITICAL messages:

Windows 7 is going to crash again. You should probably back up your hard drive.

Windows 7 just became self-aware and is set to re-enact the events of Terminator 3.

If it isn’t one of those two messages – 99% of users won’t ever need to see it.

But I guess I should wrap this up soon, since I have a long night ahead of me of changing settings to turn notifications off. But I think I might leave this one on:

“If you really don’t want to share….DONT PUT IT ON THE NET!”

I am not a technological determinist, but we are crazy if we don’t realize that there is a lot of pressure to put things on the Internet. And we can’t just blame people for being uninformed. People do it because they don’t feel like they have much of a choice due to the impending social pressures of being “on Facebook.” Of course they do have a choice, just like how we have a choice not to fill out every single field when we create one of our hundreds of profiles in the digital sphere. But there are a lot of people who happily fill out every single field, unknowingly giving away lots of information that they don’t have to, because that is what the interface is telling them that it wants. Of course we should try to inform ourselves about these things, but we can’t really expect every person to become “Facebook literate.”

Think back to filling out doctor’s forms when they used to be on paper. Their officialness and connection to our personal health told us that we should fill out every box and not skip anything. In remediating the fill-in-the-blank form onto the computer screen, many people still feel the same way when they are presented with things to fill out on profiles. I can’t tell you how many people I have seen fill out every field when they created a profile for Skype, MySpace, Facebook, etc. Sometimes they go back and eliminate things from the profile, paring it down because they wished they hadn’t included some of that information, but not everyone does this and sometimes it is too late anyway.

We should stop blaming people for being “stupid enough to put things on the Internet that they don’t want known” and acknowledge the role that the design of the interaction itself plays in this. We have finally gotten away from interactions that force people to provide information by at least allowing people to opt out (even if this is still poorly done with an asterisk or a buried drop-down menu somewhere). However, interactions as simple as filling out fields in profiles or engaging with a variety of interactions on Facebook are still telling people that they should provide the information. As designers it is our responsibility to critique and question this status quo – and stop assuming that filling that database with as much discreet information as possible is in some way adding value to how people experience technology.

Ultimately, the profile fill-in-the-blanks is just one example out of many where we blame users for making bad decisions, when the design itself was telling them that it was ok to do so. It is like putting an “OPEN” sign on a locked door, and then blaming the person after they bumped into it when it didn’t open.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not angry because I am naive about virtual worlds and their economies. As matter of fact I am fascinated by real money trade in virtual worlds, and I understand economics well enough to see that real money trade is not only an inevitable facet of virtual worlds, but is in some ways a beneficial one. Having attended Indiana University, I have even had the pleasure of sitting down with Edward Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, and who was mentioned several times in Dibbell’s book. And I agree with both of those guys that the production and trade of virtual goods should be viewed more seriously as a legitimate economy. However, because of this I also think that people who hack and exploit code in order to make money should face harsher consequences that just having an account banned.

But when it comes to this book I am disappointed in Julian Dibbell. Sure, he spent a lot of time learning a lot of very interesting things about virtual economies and working to shine a light on the whole phenomenon. Now I am not trying to crucify Dibbell here, and if he ever reads this I don’t mean for this to sound offensive towards him. But during his self-experiment with learning to make money in Ultima Online, he made partnerships and deals with dishonest people, and engaged in activities that negatively affected a lot of people – glorifying them for reasons I can’t understand. The fact is, for all the heralding of this grand new virtual space where currencies and economies are more democratic and we inch closer to bridging the digital divide – the people who end up at the top of the food chain do so by breaking the rules and negatively affecting other people’s experience. When I say rules, I am not talking about “user agreements” – we all know that the logic and fairness of these are shaky at best. I am talking about real money traders who hack the code, exploit unintended game mechanics, and run bots to create their product.

Dibbell even mentions that virtual world economies don’t work on the same rules of supply and demand that “real world” economies do. However, the main reason for this isn’t because of some new branch of economics that the world has been blessed with now that technology has given us virtual worlds – it is because of people who break the integrity of the game world for their own monetary gain. What would we do in the “real world” if someone actually figured out a way to turn lead into gold? I bet we wouldn’t let them set up a website and hire young people in China to dig up lead for them.

And this is the main reason why I will never play MMORPGs again: Currently, real money trading ruins the integrity of the game space. I remember back when I played Final Fantasy XI, and my friend and I loved going around and farming for resources to sell on the in-game auction house. However, because the real money traders in the game had so successfully figured out how to generate income they inflated the economy to a point where it took us months to farm enough money to buy the items we needed to proceed. We couldn’t hunt a monster or farm for resources without running into gold-farming bots. I don’t mind if someone is making money off of the game, but when gold farming bots are preventing players from making any money in the game, that is wrong. When a gold-selling company holds 90% of a virtual economy’s currency, that is wrong. When players must compete with trained employees of gold-farming companies who don’t care about interfering with the game experience, that is wrong.

I know the gaming industry is concerned about this stuff, but I don’t think they are nearly concerned enough. The websites that sell gold, items, and accounts only make money by exploiting things in the game to the detriment of the game economy and the experience of people who actually want to play the game and interact with other players. The mafia-style business antics detailed in Dibbell’s book loom on the horizon, providing a very disenchanting vision of the future of our digital lives. It will be interesting to see if eventually the IRS, law enforcement agencies, and the game companies that provide these games will start treating the trade of virtual goods seriously – and criminalize resource production methods that disrupt the integrity of the game space.

It has taken me a long time to figure out what I think about Facebook, and I have read enough articles to make me yearn for a nice 20-page End User License Agreement. In this post I will respond to the Schrage article from my perspective as a human-centered designer, in the hopes of shining a light on why Facebook never seems to get it right.

For many people, Facebook represents the way they define their lives, and I mean that to be as profound as it sounds. Because of this, Facebook should seek to cultivate a better understanding of society and culture – Facebook as a social space in 2010 is a far cry from its origins in 2003′s Facemash. I may be wrong, but it seems that Facebook understands people and culture with all the nuance of a 19 year-old Mark Zuckerberg illegally accessing student information and photos in order to evaluate students based on if they were “good-looking.”

I don’t mean to suggest that Mark or Facebook haven’t matured since then, but I do think that Schrage’s response conveys a Facebook that doesn’t acknowledge its social and civic responsibility. It is absolutely true that Facebook has created a social space that adds a lot of value to people lives, but it is clear that the service and company still have a lot of growing up to do. One might make the case that Facebook has no responsibility to “do the right thing,” however that is not the message that Schrage delivered. Not to mention that a non-attempt to do the “right thing” is essentially a conscious choice to do the wrong thing.

I think the first step is to stop assuming so many things about people based on “user data” and “user activity.” It is good that they care about their users, but they seem to only see them as “users of Facebook” instead of individual people. No amount of digital data in the world will tell you why someone “liked” something, it will only tell you that they clicked a button. No amount of options, drop-down menus, or “Facebook Site Governance Pages” will provide the transparency and user-centeredness that Schrage claims to have.

Here are a few suggestions that I think would work, although this is hardly an all-encompassing solution. They should 1) bring in some designers who are trained in real empathic research methods (not just developers and graphic designers), 2) allow them to carry out qualitative and quantitative research about users, culture, and society, and 3) actually incorporate the findings about what people as a culture (not just users) care about into a long-term plan to make Facebook a social space that enhances our lives instead of complicating them.

This reminds me of all of the pregnancy ads I have gotten when my girlfriend calls me “baby” in an email. Thanks, Google. Your short-sighted view of what the Internet can be has created a situation in which we all either are forced to deal with the shockingly horrid “context-aware” advertising that reduces the subtlety and complexity of language to a pathetic hackjob of irrelevent and sometimes insulting drivel, or we can self-edit ourselves. Either way we lose, and so do you.

In systems of language, the meaning of words comes from the other words and concepts we associate with them. What happens to our language and methods of expressions when all of our words become predominantly associated with organizations that can pay to have a word associated with them? Take a word like “progress” for example. Type this in Google Search and you get Progress Lighting, Progress Software, and Progress Energy. In GMail you might get ads for Progressive Insurance or any other number of businesses who have chosen to create a brand for themselves based on the concept of “progress,” which is to move forward in a positive way.

Are we headed towards a future where our language is entirely constructed of meanings defined by companies and businesses? I could be argued that we are already there. And I don’t know what the solution is.

End of rant. For now.

In making my thoughts and assumptions explicit, I have very strong opinions about how World of Warcraft favors certain playstyles over others.  I feel that the design and “loudest” player groups have created a game culture that favors ambition, aggressiveness, and a focus on certain achievements over others.  (Warning: The following sentence might be highly subjective or half-baked).  High level or “epic/elite” activities, raiding, or player vs. player are seen as “better” than any-level activities like exploration, pet collection, or crafting.  While these any-level activities are not seen as unimportant, they don’t have near the prestige of the other activities, and are often treated as a means to an end.

After my first attempt at doing a semiotic reading of the FigurePrints service, I have a vague sense of a thesis.  This is something along the lines of: The FigurePrints interaction favors dominant, aggressive, and high-level players over players that are low-level or less concerned with aggressive or competitive play.

I begin with a statement about what the figure itself represents.  It is a text that represents the player’s time investment, their attachment to the character and the character’s place in the history of the game lore, the character’s (and player’s) growth over time, the character (and player’s) growth in a larger social context of friends and other players in the game, and on and on.  It is a text of rich and personal meaning, and the choices that FigurePrints provides limit players to only certain kinds of meaning.  I will illustrate this with a syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis of the choices provided to players in the creation of the figure.

Syntagmatically-speaking, the creation of the FigurePrints statue consists of choosing from a Pose, a Base, and a set of Armor.

I think I need to explore the importance of limiting players to these 3 choices, but as of yet I haven’t analyzed it that much.  However, I currently can adequately speak about what each of these paradigms represent and what choices are given.

Pose as a representation of body language

Players can choose from 44 different poses, 33 of which involve the use of a weapon and depict the character in battle.  This leaves 11 poses that could reflect the character out of battle.  Of these 11 poses, 5 are gestures that depict behavior that is aggressive or negative in the culture of World of Warcraft.  There are the character poses of yell, chicken (taunt), rude (making an obscene gesture), train (a gesture that represents a despised activity in which a player or players, on purpose or on accident, lead a large group of monsters to another player resulting in chaos, game lag, and death), and beg (perhaps an even more despised behavior than a monster train).

The remaining 6 poses are stand, walk, wave, kiss, kneel, and sit.  Out of 44 possible representations of body language, this seems to be a very limited range of choices for creating a character figure that is NOT fighting or calling attention to the negative cultural aspects of the game.  Granted, the game is called World of WARcraft, not the World of Politeness and Compromise.  However, there is much more to a player’s character and gameplay than fighting.  Players engage in arguably more social/helpful scenarios than they do in fighting, and they collect plants, mine for metals, go fishing, craft items, and engage with storylines.  But there are no poses for any of these.

Base as a representation of [something]. < I don’t know what to put here yet.  It is a symbol of elevated status, of standing on top of something, of being built upon something.  I don’t know.  Anyway:

There are 4 choices of statue bases:

Marbled Floor: The “plainest” of all the bases, but represents a material of luxury and importance.

Horned Stand: Horns are aggressive, bestial, and associated with violence

Gold Mound: wealth, greed, achievement

Onyxia Base: This one is interesting in that it cost an extra $10, perhaps due to printing constraints.  However, more cost is usually associated with a “premium” or “superior” product, which in this case is the base that represents a large, epic battle against a dragon.  This particular battle is a well-known (relatively-speaking) raid in World of Warcraft, and is sort of a rite of passage for players that begin raiding.  Here the “premium” product is reserved for players concerned with raiding.

What is missing from this assortment of bases is the choice to have your character standing in a meadow, or at a crafting station, or near a fishing hole, all of which are places that exist in the game and can have very special meanings for players.

Armor as a representation of fashion and achievement

Choices of armor are limited to the armor you have actually collected in the game.  In the analysis I did, a level 80 character that has done many raids and player vs. player fights has 10 armor options as opposed to a level 20 character who has 3.  Additionally, 2 of these options are for Christmas outfits that every player has access to.  If you remove those options the armor choices are 8 to 1 in favor of the player that engages with game activities that reward players with special armor.

As I mentioned before, there are an incredible amount of activities that players can engage with.  Players can follow the storyline, harvest materials, craft items, play the stock-market on the auction house, explore the game world, collect pets, teach other players how to play, help out other players with difficult situations, make new friends, and on and on.  However, these activities in themselves are not rewarded with special sets of armor.  Special sets of armor are reserved for players that engage with high-level game content, and are successful in killing “epic” monsters, or defeating other players in tournaments.

Since FigurePrints only allows players to “dress” their character in the armor they have acquired in the game, this places a much higher value on high-level players concerned with raids and player vs. player activities.  This is most evident in the words used in the instructions:

These are the instructions shown to all players, regardless of if they have 8 sets of high-level armor to choose from or 1 low-level set of armor.

Any player without high-level armor could be described as either not interested in those aspects of the game that provide the armor, or as not “advanced” enough to have acquired it.  By not providing this player with as many options to “dress” the character, the player is limited in the ways he or she can create a meaningful representation of his or her character.

FigurePrints situated amongst other texts

And then I can also talk about FigurePrints as a creative activity concerned with creating an artifact that represents the player’s character.  In seeing FigurePrints as this, I can compare it to many other artifacts that are created to represent the character:  costumes, drawings, forum signatures, fan fiction, and the WoW Armory just to name a few.  In exploring these artifacts, I have seen an interesting occurrence: artifacts that are created from scratch by players have very different qualities than artifacts that are generated using information from the game.

Some future design implications?

Namely, game-generated artifacts seem to focus on achievements, statistics, armor, and items.  Player-generated artifacts seem to focus on personal stories and social elements.  Some of this is discussed by Silvia Lindtner, Bonnie Nardi, and Fernanda Viégas.  This will be more important in the future as representations based on digital data become a source for decision-making.  If social spaces like World of Warcraft use their digital data to reduce the rich experience down to statistics and equipment, what implications does that have for the ways in which we value others and ourselves?
EDIT: January 4, 2010.  Since first posting this, I have developed these thoughts more and have written several drafts of this paper.  It is currently a work in progress.

The transformative powers of repeated viewings were incredible. I had entirely different experiences when I viewed the game through different phenomenological perspectives. The first time I saw it as just a MMORPG player. When I first watched this video, I was distracted by the medium. All I saw was World of Warcraft characters, and attached to them every stereotype and bias that exists about World of Warcraft players, my understanding of the culture of MMORPGs, and the pop culture phenomenon that is the game.

However, after repeated viewings the “World of Warcraft-ness” started to fade away, and I realized that this video is very compelling. The second time I saw it as Chad with my particular history of knowing people who have died and the beginnings and endings of relationships in my life. I even noticed that when I was writing my notes from watching the video, I never referred to the character in the video as “he” or “him.” I kept writing the word “I” or “me.” That was quite a powerful realization.

Then I started reading the various comments and I saw someone who said it reminded him of when his mom was killed by a drunk driver. In my next viewing I pretended that my mom had been killed by a drunk driver, and I was surprised (and a little frightened) at how easily I was able to envision that scenario. Throughout all of these viewings I felt real, genuine pain. It grew even worse when I kept reading the comments about all the other types of loss that people associated with the video: breaking up, moving away, death of a loved one, losing touch with a childhood friend, someone cheating on someone else, or watching a sick relative slowly get sicker.

The sadness and tragedy of life were made even clearer by the insensitive and frankly assholish comments that are interspersed amongst the genuine comments. For every heartfelt comment there is another where someone is making fun of anyone who got something out of a “stupid video game.” There is much to be said here about internet culture, how machinima is viewed amongst other forms of expression, or how this particular video is grouped in with funny and ridiculous other WoW-inspired machinima. But that is the structuralist and semiotic stuff for later.

With all my new lenses for looking at things, I am slightly overwhelmed with things that I can say about this video, not least of which is that this video is definitely not what Blizzard had in mind when they created World of Warcraft.  But I have come to an interesting realization recently, and it is this: It isn’t our ability to say all these things that is valuable. It is the fact that we have noticed new things and in doing so are able to have richer experiences.

I feel that buying into the “my OS can beat up your OS” mentality hurts everyone. Instead of critiquing a piece of technology on its individual merits and shortcomings, we now must choose sides in order to function or converse in the technological world. Thanks greatly to Apple’s successful marketing, we have reduced our technology down to political alignment. To me this is scary stuff. It is exactly what politicians do in order to make voters forget about their shortcomings, and instead focus on identifying with a set of values. The image and branding of Apple and Microsoft have become more crucial to the success of the technology than its actual usefulness, usability, and accessibility. This is why politics never changes, and if technology continues to adopt this philosophy I fear it will stifle creativity.

This leads me to my second point, which is that the OS-Battle Royale prevents us from asking the simple questions. Why do we have to choose an OS? Why does my machine need an OS? Why should I care about this OS? Or for many computer users, what the hell is an OS? Surely, from a programming or engineering perspective these questions sound nearly sacrilegious. But why? If we want to be truly human-centered then why should anyone care at all what an OS is, who made it, or what values they might convey by choosing one over another? We should be trying to figure out what is wrong with all OS’s, not picking and choosing the most tolerable. If we only critique based on comparison we are blinded to what could be possible outside the confines of the argument.

The third point is that most technological conversation is saturated with condescension against anyone without the appropriate disclaimer and use of techno-jargon. People who wish to state their opinion must include some statement about their experience with all the OS’s in various situations in order to legitimize their opinions. Then they must speak the appropriate language If they don’t want to get sidelined or flamed for not being “computer-literate” enough.

This is wrong. It is that type of thinking that Alan Cooper addresses in his book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. Our technology is not as good as it could be because the only opinions that get heard or taken seriously are the opinions given by “experts.” In this instance “experts” are those that are “tech-savvy,” “computer-literate,” and the like. This leaves out the older generation or anyone else that doesn’t want to spend their lives learning techno-speak, even though their opinion of technology is of equal value.

I pose this question: Who is more of an expert about whether something is usable, or more importantly useful, than the person using it? I don’t care if that someone explains their opinion in jargon, plain English, or pictures drawn in crayon. Anyone, no matter their amount of experience or grasp of technology acronyms and language, is an expert when it comes to their own individual experience. It is my job as a designer to develop the skills and aptitude to understand that experience and make it better. This is what being human-centered is all about.

However, the point of this post is not to relentlessly bash Apple.  There are definitely some things that Apple gets right.  No matter the flaws, (and ignoring the pack mentality of Mac ownership), my MacBook is a pleasure to use.  My Mac has always performed with little to no slowdown, it boots up quickly, and errors are minimal.  The multiple key shortcuts and system-wide search are invaluable and work like a charm,  and I couldn’t go on living without Spaces, Expose, and Stickies.  But I am not going to praise my MacBook for everything that everyone already knows is good.  This is the place for me to address it’s shortcomings in terms of design and Apple’s overall business model.  Just as my praise is not comprehensive of all the great things about my MacBook, this list of complaints is not meant to be comprehensive or representative of all Macs.

Materials
The materials that Apple chose for the case soak up oil and dirt from every touch.  The result is that after a month my $1000 machine looked like I pulled it out of a dumpster.  I have solved some of these issues by purchasing extra pads and covers for the wrist rest and keys, but I shouldn’t have had to spend any more money.  Additionally, the ridge on the bottom inflicts real physical pain by cutting into my wrists.  (The newer version of the Macbook has remedied some of these issues.)

I don’t touch the monitor, yet it is constantly covered in fingerprints and smudges.  My attempts at wiping these smudges away with soft monitor cleaning cloths with very little pressure have resulted in crushed pixels on my screen. Now I have numerous bright spots in a sea of smudges to go with my filthy case.  For a company with an emphasis on image, this model’s case and display make no sense.

Performance
There have been many times that I have had to turn my laptop completely off because it froze while trying to come back from sleep mode.  It is good that most things are saved for me when this happens, and I love my Mac for that.  But it shouldn’t happen in the first place.

Why do I need to quit an application in addition to closing a file?  Often I close a file and have no need for the application to run anymore.  However if I don’t remember to actually quit the application, it is still running and taking up system resources.  I am sure that Apple has a reason for this, but it is not transparent to me and therefore a source of frustration.  That doesn’t mean that I want the answer told to me so that I can have an “aha” moment.  With a better design I wouldn’t need to ask the question in the first place.

The delete button is not a delete button.  It is a backspace button.  If I have something selected and hit delete it makes sense that it should be deleted. I have seen the looks of wonder and joy when I tell others that they can delete things by pressing  “Command + Delete” instead of dragging stuff to the trash can.  While I love that Macs have countless keyboard shortcuts to accomplish various tasks, nobody should have to read a manual or scour internet forums to discover how to delete files.

Business Model
Be warned that the following content is just an opinion, and even more importantly not necessarily a very strong opinion on my part.  Every situation or argument needs a devil’s advocate, and often what one might call my “opinion” is whatever I feel the majority of people aren’t thinking about.

Apple wants Mac users to feel like they are part of the “cool crowd,” and that they are rescuing users from the horrors of the competition.  Apple is very good at this, and it plays an important part in their business model.  But it is this techno-elitism that allows Apple to charge a premium for basic hardware.

It is no secret that Apple’s marketing is second to none.  However, that seems to be because Apple has taken all the worst elements from political attack ads and put a palatable layer to them.  Instead of allowing their products to speak for themselves (which they can do quite aptly), they attack the competition with propaganda and fabricate conflicts to force people to choose sides.  I am reminded of the Rodney King “Can’t we all just get along” phrase.  If a product is good then it can stand on its own.  I feel that Apple diminishes their worth when they resort to attacking Microsoft. (And Microsoft is no better for retaliating in the same fashion.)

Apple is also very good at getting free advertising from their customers through the white earbuds, brightly lit Mac icon on the laptop, and Apple stickers for the car.  Most people don’t like feeling exploited if they realize that it is happening to them.

Apple’s line of products is usually limited to 3-4 models.  On the one hand, this allows them to dedicate their design energy to getting those few models right.  On the other hand, they leverage this into a method to squeeze more money out of their customers.

In a time when hardware has never been less expensive, I paid $1000 for a laptop with 1GB of RAM and no DVD burner.  To upgrade the RAM to 4GB it would cost an extra $300.  Installing it myself cost about $50.  For a time, Apple perpetuated the notion that you must be careful when installing aftermarket hardware or else you will ruin your premium product.  So for people who buy into this line of thinking or don’t have the skills to install memory, they pay a ludicrous amount of money just to upgrade the “entry-level” Mac to a level even with hardware that has been standard for two years.  (In Apple’s defense, the have recently lowered the price of RAM upgrades.)

Additionally, how much would it really cost to provide the MacBook with a DVD burner?  $20?  $40?  Not nearly the $300 to go up to the next version.  And what if I want a case that will actually hold up to regular use?  For that I have to to pay twice the price, starting at $2000 for the MacBook Pro.  That is the same as a down payment on a vehicle, just for a machine that will be outdated in two years.

Want to get basic repairs on your cherished machine?  Well you can only get this done at a select few repair shops that can get Apple parts, which are grossly overpriced.  I took a friend’s MacBook Pro in to the only authorized shop in town.  The problems were minor: the latch wasn’t closing properly and the case had a dent in the side.  I was told that the dent and the latch could be fixed for $600.  To fix just the latch it would be $300.  Half a month’s worth of rent for a piece of plastic.

The point of all of this is to illuminate the fact that Apple’s business model is definitely smart, but they are lacking in several areas of what I consider truly human-centered design.  This includes more than pretty design, fun to use products, and memorable commercials.  I think that people should ask more questions and demand more out of designers that hold the fate of the future of technology.  Maybe this would prevent people from spending hard-earned cash on about 10% usefulness and usability and 90% fabricated “coolness.”

In the paper the authors claim that the HCI design process is missing an integral final step, the step of interaction criticism. There are many other art and design oriented fields, such as film and literature, which already have a culture of expert critics. It is suggested that HCI should borrow from these fields, and also that the inability to properly reflect could stagnate the growth and acceptance of HCI.

With regards to the overall idea and concepts contained in the paper, I am convinced that it is important to cultivate a corpus of critique knowledge. This is especially important in an emerging field. Another thing to add is the manner in which this paper was written. Many HCI papers take a scientific approach to a field that is intrinsically abstract. This paper takes more of a literary and artistic approach that I feel more adequately tackles the abstract nature of design. The true nature of design cannot be defined. Art is the better medium for defining the “indefinable.” Note that I am not suggesting that design is art, although it can be.

The parallel of HCI design to film and books is obvious (as noted in the paper). Film and books are the result of the creator and are experienced by an audience. They are the result of design just the same as any type of technology. HCI already borrows methods and techniques from many other fields (such as pyschology and anthropology). It seems only fitting to continue this transdisciplinary tradition by snatching up some literary and film influence.