I couldn’t resist this one. It comes from a business accounting package, and offers the confused user the opportunity to not save the information in the ’sale’ by pressing …. what?
July 20, 2005
OK or Cancel? Confused? You will be…
July 13, 2005
No Such Thing as a ‘Free’ Coffee
What makes you push a button? What is ‘buttonness’? What is the cue that makes you, when faced with a vending machine, push the right bit of the interface - the button - so you get the right drink? I have always found this subject rather fascinating, from my observations about affordance to ketchup bottles to doorhandles, but this particular ‘buttonness’ is a good one as it gets me again and again, I never learn, and, in fact I don’t believe I can ever learn.
This particular vending machine offers about sixteen options or so, each represented by a square graphic area. The Gold Blend ‘interface’ has a large graphic area with two circles at the bottom. I always push the one that says ‘free’. And it never works. The button with the little cup is that one that works. When I first came to this machine I just pushed anywhere in the square graphical area, but I quickly learned that that didn’t work. But I never ever seem to learn that ‘free’ doesn’t work, and ‘little cup’ does.
On the other hand, the PG Tips ‘interface’ is very similar - large graphic area, two circles, with ‘free’ top left (apologies for the shaky picture, too much coffee…), but I never push ‘free’ on here, in fact I always get PG Tips right and press ‘little cup’.
Why is this? Well, I hope you aren’t expecting an answer, because I haven’t got one, only guesses. My best guess is that the PG Tips ‘free’ graphic has no real boundary edge and appears less pressable. The only other option is relative placement, and I find that hard to believe. But frankly, I just don’t know, and I can’t introspect into these aspects of my cognition. Like thin-slicing and neural networks, we just don’t know why. But the effect is immensely strong, and it does not appear possible to consciously override these ‘thoughtless’ actions using rationality and cognition. I think that I will always get it wrong, even though I know, rationally, that there is no such thing as a ‘free’ coffee.
July 11, 2005
Cars are Red, Scenics are Blue
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I wrote the other day in the Beginning of Wisdom piece about a neural network system that was trained to discriminate US from Soviet Tanks in the cold war. Only it didn’t - it made its discrimination on the basis of lighting conditions - the US tanks had been photographed in the morning, the Soviet at night!
We found the same kind of thing with my son James, aged 2 1/2, the other day. We’ve just got a new car, a Renault Scenic. This has caused great excitement, with my daughter (Emma, aged 7 1/2) showing it off and counting all Renaults she sees. This has sparked interest in James who is going all out to spot all Scenics he sees too, but his discrimination is slightly wide of the mark like the neural network is - he claims all cars of the same shade of blue as our Scenic are Scenics, and all others, including non-blue Scenics, are not. Ergo, all cars are red - including non-blue Scenics - and Scenics are blue - including any blue cars!
This discrimination thing, It’s the way that we learn, example, example, counter-example etc. Its not about neural networks specifically. I remember a book called ‘Induction’ by John Holland in the 80s about all this stuff and how it relates to how we problem solve. We don’t get told all the rules, we get told some, and we infer the others. And often, in a blink, we don’t know why we think something, but we do. Sounds dumb, but it’s actually what make us smart.
July 5, 2005
Fail Early, so you Succeed
In the risk averse 21st Century, we are afraid to fail. But failure is such a part of success, it is almost a requirement for it. When we don’t fail often, we don’t succeed either.
Last weekend as part of the Live8 concert, Ricky Gervais of ‘Office’ fame did an anchor spot between two acts. In his spot he told us about a conference call between that had just occurred between Sir Bob, Bush and Blair … “They’ve agreed to quadruple aid … we can all go home!” … nobody knew what to say, to clap, to cheer, to cry, to disbelieve? It was in fact a joke … but a nerve-crunchingly embarrassing moment. It flopped big time, just too edgy. I talked with friends later about it and realised that the reason Gervais is so damn funny most of the time is that he lives on this knife edge of cringe and comedy. He fails often, very often. And when he succeeds, he makes “The Office” and it is impressive in spades.
We all should fail. It happens a lot in our lives. We should accept it. Massive lifelong stars like David Bowie started their careers with enormously embarrassing failures like “The Laughing Gnome”. Why doesn’t it happen in design innovation? Because currently its not acceptable to do anything that is ‘risky’ - i.e. that loses money . Failure is not seen as a path to success, rather the brand mark of irresponsibility and blunder. But I’m with Ricky Gervais, and Adam Ant - “Ridicule is nothing to be scared of”!
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