Getting Info into the Field with Extension

This week I was down in Raleigh, North Carolina to speak at National Extension Technology Conference (NETC) 2008, which is for the people running the web and technology components for what used to be the agricultural extension of state universities, but now includes much more. This was a great conference to connect with people trying to bring education, information, and knowledge services to all communities, including those in rural areas where only have dial-up connectivity to get internet access. The subject matter presented is very familiar to many other conferences I attend and present at, but with a slightly different twist, they focus on ease of use and access to information for everybody and not just the relatively early adopters. The real values of light easy to use interfaces that are clear to understand, well structured, easy to load, and include affordance in the initial design consideration is essential.

I sat in on a few sessions, so to help tie my presentation to the audience, but also listen to interest and problems as they compare to the organizations I normally talk to and work with (mid-size member organizations up to very large global enterprise). I sat in on a MOSS discussion. This discussion about Sharepoint was indiscernible from any other type of organization around getting it to work well, licensing, and really clumsy as well as restrictive sociality. The discussion about the templates for different types of interface (blogs and wikis) were the same as they they do not really do or act like the template names. The group seemed to have less frustration with the wiki template, although admitted it was far less than perfect, it did work to some degree with the blog template was a failure (I normally hear both are less than useful and only resemble the tools in name not use). [This still has me thinking Sharepoint is like the entry drug for social software in organizations, it looks and sounds right and cool, but is lacking the desired kick.]

I also sat down with the project leads and developers of an eXtension wide tool that is really interesting to me. It serves the eXtension community and they are really uncoupling the guts of the web tools to ease greater access to relevant information. This flattening of the structures and new ways of accessing information is already proving beneficial to them, but it also has brought up the potential to improve ease some of the transition for those new to the tools. I was able to provide feedback that should provide a good next step. I am looking forward to see that tool and the feedback in the next three to six months as it has incredible potential to ease information use into the hands that really need it. It will also be a good example for how other organizations can benefit from similar approaches.

Good Bye to the User?

One of the side-effects of my focus on the Personal InfoCloud has been finding putting the focus on the person gets to more options than focussing on the "user". When doing user interviews for existing systems and sites, we are interviewing people. These people we ask: What works for them; what is missing; What are the devices they use; What locations do they use the information; In what context do they use the information; and How do they reuse and repurpose the information (as some of the questions). These are real people supplying the answers.

In the past we roll-up these people's answers and build an user persona. In rolling up we are building one or many common users and try to generalize. This simplification of the problem set we build to starts to limit our solutions. If one percent or less of our user base is using a mobile device to access information or our application do we throw them out of the persona? Normally, we would tend to do this and focus on a higher portion of our population.

But, in building a user-centered approach we can miss some of the easy solutions that will help the people that are part of the smaller populations. By keeping the person with the mobile needs in the mix, we are able to build scenarios and solutions that will work across many device needs. The steps between a desktop/laptop web browser only community and many mobile devices is relatively small. The difference to the desktop/laptop user is minimal, but to the mobile user it can be the difference between having access to information when it is needed and not having access at all when the information is needed most (like working remotely on a project that is 50 miles from the nearest landline and internet connection).

As we look at providing solutions we base our choices on users who make up a large percentage of our population. Lets take the 80/20 rule, we build for 80 percent of our users with 20 percent of the work. Sounds good, until we realize that one in five users are left out of the equation. By focussing on the person, we can look at extending our success. Often by building more than one solution into our products or one interface metaphor (folders versus tags for storing e-mail) we can provide better solutions that work for more people. Does this add complexity? Many times, yes it adds complexity on the design and development side, but knowing early enough in the process we can build more open and more flexible systems that lead to greater adoption. Not, only do we get greater adoption, but we open up the potential for uses beyond what we designed into being.

No two people are alike and we should build toward this reality so that there is choice, freedom, and ease. The more granular approach does not completely wipe out the user personas, but greatly enhances their functionality. Go back to the original people interviewed and use them in scenario planning for their needs across their contexts and tasks. How well does what we are designing work for them? How different will a solution need to be to have it work for them? Do these users have older technology? Do we want to rule people out categorically or can we do a little more work and be inclusive?

Focussing on the person and the granularity is where things get more difficult, but this is where we can make huge differences. This is what we get paid for right?

Information Structure for Information Reuse

John Udell's discussion of Apple's Knowledge Navigator is a wonderful overview of a Personal Information Cloud. If the tools was more mobile or was shown synching with a similar mobile device to have the "knowledge" with the user at all time it is would be a perfect representation.

Information in a Personal Information Cloud is not only what the user wants to have stored for retrieval when it is needed (role-based information and contextual) but portable and always accessible. Having tools that allow the user to capture, categorize, and have attracted to the user so it is always with them is only one part of the equation. The other component is having information that is capable of being captured and reused. Standards structures for information, like (X)HTML and XML are the beginnings of reusable information. These structures must be open to ensure ease of access and reuse in proper context. Information stored in graphics, proprietary software, and proprietary file formats greatly hinders the initial usefulness of the information as it can be in accessible, but it even more greatly hinders the information's reuse.

These principle are not only part of the Personal Information Cloud along with the Model of Attraction, but also contextual design, information architecture, information design, and application development.