Showing posts with label User-friendly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label User-friendly. Show all posts

September 24, 2012

Baxter Disappoints


This new robot named Baxter, by Rethink Robots, is practically being touted as the greatest thing since Swiss cheese--"allowing our people to use their minds more than their hands"--but this demonstration video shows a clumsy and awkward robot instead. 

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (18 September 2012) actually calls it a "huge disappointment" and I've got to agree.

The product manager in video calls Baxter--developed with $62 million over 5 years--"easy," "complaint," and "collaborative," but unfortunately Baxter, the robot, comes off looking anything but as he slowly and laboriously tries to pick up and move items from one location to another, and the product manager pulls his arms and pocks at his screen/face to program it.

While I am a huge fan of robotics and see their potential to transform our society--where robots can becomes surrogates for humans in everything from work to even odd companionship, I do not see the breakthrough here by Rethink Robots--except in the affordability of this robot to be used in manufacturing for only $22,000 a unit. 

What I do like about Baxter is that it is generally a good-looking device--with a solid looking grey base and long 9 foot wingspan red stretch arms.  I even sort of like the eyes and brows giving it a humanoid nature, but the quirky and flimsy looking red screen hanging off the main body looks chinsy. 

Also, if the robot is so "friendly," you'd almost expect it to be on wheels and mobile with the ability to speak, so that it could more genuinely interact with others, but it does not.  

Baxter is the brainchild of one of the pioneers of the Roomba vacuum--another toyish device that I wouldn't spend a dime on. 

Maybe, the way to look at it is that we need to take baby steps before we get the real iRobots coming to us--and hopefully that day will come soon.

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February 4, 2011

Apple Cool Is Serious Business

Jim Bueermann, former Chief of Police of the Redlands Police Department in California is a visionary when it comes to his adoption of iPhones and iPads for law enforcement.

I was fortunate to have met Chief Bueermann recently when he shared his experiences with Apple technology.

Earlier than most people, Bueermann saw how smartphone and tablet technologies could change the way his department could do business. He understood that information available to his people was as potent a force as a physical advantage.

This video shows his officers using it on the beat and back in the office - it's ubiquitous for them.

On the Apple profile, Bueerman states: "It allows them (his workforce) to look at satellite maps, access the Internet, send emails, and take photos of potential victims and subjects."

Lt. Catren of the Redlands Police says that "Having all this information at your fingertips and being able to share it instantaneously with other officers in the field is invaluable" and has led in many cases to identifying perpetrators and capturing suspects.

In the video, we see police officers using mobile technologies for everything from capturing information to giving presentations, from sharing suspect photos to analyzing and reporting on criminal activity, and from scanning property to taking and watching video surveillance.

I like when one of his officers explains that because of the portability and ease of use of these technologies, they are basically "made for law enforcement."

Moving to iPhone and iPads (and Droid devices etc.) with all the available innovative Apps at the touch of button is a culture change organizationally, but also it is a game-changer for how we use information technology anytime and anywhere for protecting people and saving lives.

Just because a technology is user-friendly, doesn't mean that it isn't "serious business."

Redlands PD is a great illustration, although on a small scale, of how we can adopt what was only a few years ago considered "consumer technology" and use it to great effect in the enterprise.

While Apple doesn't have a monopoly on this technology, it is certainly a good example.


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September 24, 2010

The User-centric Web

David Siegel has written a book called “Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web To Transform Your Business” (Dec. 2009).

The main idea is that businesses (suppliers) need to adapt to a new world, where rather than them “push” whatever data they want to us when they want, we (consumers) will be able to get to the information we want and “pull” it whenever we need it (i.e. on demand).

Siegel identifies three types of data online of which less than 1% is currently visible web pages:

  • Public Web—what “we normally see when searching and browsing for information online: at least 21 billion pages indexed by search engines.
  • Deep Web—includes the “large data repositories that requires their internal searches,” such as Facebook, Craigslist, etc.—“about 6 trillion documents generally not seen by search engines.”
  • Private Web—data that “we can only get access to if we qualify: corporate intranets, private networks, subscription based services, and so on—about 3 trillion pages also not seen by search engines.”

In the future, Siegel sees an end of push (i.e. viewing just the Public Web) and instead a new world of pull (i.e. access to the Deep Web).

Moreover, Siegel builds on the “Semantic Web” definition of Sir Tim Berners-Lee who coined the term in the 1990s, as a virtual world where:

  • Data is unambiguous (i.e. means exactly the same things to anyone or any system).
  • Data is interconnected (i.e. it lives online in a web of databases, rather than in incompatible silos buried and inaccessible).
  • Data has an authoritative source (i.e. each piece of information has a unique name, single source, and specified terms of distribution).

While, I enjoyed browsing this book, I wasn’t completely satisfied:

  1. It’s not a tug of war between push and pullthey are not mutually exclusive. Providers push information out (i.e. make information available), and at the same time, consumers pull information in (access it on-demand).
  2. It’s not just about data anymore—it’s also about the applications (“apps”). Like data, apps are pushed out by suppliers and are pulled down by consumers. The apps make the data friendly and usable to the consumer. Rather than providing raw data or information overload, apps can help ready the data for end-user consumption.

All semantics aside, getting to information on the web is important—through a combination of push and pull—but ultimately, making the information more helpful to people through countless of innovative applications is the next phase of the how the web is evolving.

I would call this next phase, the “user-centric web.” It relies on a sound semantic web—where data is unambiguous, interconnected, and authoritative—but also takes it to the next level, serving up sound semantic information to the end-user through a myriad of applications that make the information available in ever changing and intelligent ways. This is more user-centric, and ultimately closer to where we want to be.


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November 21, 2009

Learning from Steve Jobs, CEO of the Decade

Fortune Magazine (23 November 2009) named Steve Jobs of Apple, the CEO of the decade.

Steve Jobs’ unveiled his “digital lifestyle” strategy in 2000 when Apple was worth about $5 billion. Now almost a decade later, Apple is worth about $170 billion—slightly more than Google. Apple has revolutionized the markets for music, movies, mobile telephones, as well as computing.

Steve Jobs embodies User-centric leadership in every way:

Customer is #1—Apple’s products satisfy customers. “He may not pay attention to customer research, but he works slavishly to make products customers will buy.” There is intuitiveness to Steve Jobs’ understanding of people and technology. He knows what customers want even if they don’t or can’t articulate it and he designs the technology around the customer. Think iPhone, iPod, and Mac—they are some of the easiest and most customer friendly technologies out there; hence 100,000 applications for the iPhone, 73% of the MP3 player market, and some of the best PCs on the market today.

Innovation is key—Apple is consistently ahead of the curve. Their products are leaders, not follower-copycats. Despite losing the PC wars to Microsoft Windows, the Mac operating system, functionality, and design has been the one setting the standard for ease of use, speed, and security. The iTunes/iPod completely upended the music and movie industry, and the iPhone is the envy of just about every professional and consumer out there who doesn’t yet own one.

Holistic Solutions Delivery—Steve Jobs delivers a comprehensive solution’s architecture for the customer, and it shows with his merging of hardware, software, and service solutions. For example, “over the course of 2001…Apple launched iTunes music software (in January), the Mac OS X operating system (March), the first Apple retail stores (May), and the first iPod (November).” In 2002, Jobs told Time, “We’re the only company that owns the whole widget—the hardware, the software, and the operating system. We take full responsibility for the customer experience.”

Design Genius—The design of Apple’s products are sheer genius. They are sleek, elegant, compact, mobile, yet user-friendly—they are timeless, and pieces such as the G4 Cube have actually been showcased in The Museum of Modern Art and The Digital Design Museum. Even the Apple store in Manhattan with its winding glass staircases and cube entrance is a tourist destination in NYC.

Big Picture, Little Picture—Jobs is a master of balancing the strategic and tactical aspects of product execution. Jobs set the vision, but is also involved in the execution. “He’s involved in details you wouldn’t think a CEO would be involved in.” Apple is his passion and his desire for virtual perfection comes across the spectrum of both product and service from the company.

Mastery of the Message—he rehearses over and over every line he and others utter in public about Apple.” And it’s not only the contents of the message, but also the timing. Jobs knows how to keep a product launch secret until just the right moment. MacWorld, for example, has been used to strategically communicate the launch of new products, and this has kept both Apple fans and competitors closely tuned to these events.

Steve Jobs is a true model of leadership excellence due in no small measure to his relentless pursuit comprehensive product solutions based on innovation, design excellence, and customer service excellence.

Great Jobs!


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April 22, 2008

“Consumerized” IT and Enterprise Architecture

“Ergonomics (or human factors) is the application of scientific information concerning objects, systems and environment for human use…Ergonomics is commonly thought of as how companies design tasks and work areas to maximize the efficiency and quality of their employees’ work. However, ergonomics comes into everything which involves people. Work systems, sports and leisure, health and safety should all embody ergonomics principles if well designed. The goal of ergonomics and human factors is to make the interaction of humans with machines as smooth as possible, enhancing performance, reducing error, and increasing user satisfaction through comfort and aesthetics. It is the applied science of equipment design intended to maximize productivity by reducing operator fatigue and discomfort. The field is also called biotechnology, human engineering, and human factors engineering.”

“In the 19th century, Frederick Winslow Taylor pioneered the "Scientific Management" method, which proposed a way to find the optimum method for carrying out a given task… The dawn of the Information Age has resulted in the new ergonomics field of human-computer interaction (HCI). Likewise, the growing demand for and competition among consumer goods and electronics has resulted in more companies including human factors in product design. (Wikipedia)

Despite all the talk of ergonomics, we’ve all had the experience of getting a new IT gadget or using a new IT application that necessitated that we go through reams of instructions, user-guides, manuals (some 3-4 inches thick), and online tutorials, and still often we end up with having to call in to some IT support center (often in India these days) for walking through the “technical difficulties”.

Not a very user-centric architecture.

Well finally companies are waking up and factoring in (and designing in) ergonomics and a more user-centric approach.

The Wall Street Journal, 22 April 2008, reports “Business Software’s Easy Feeling: Programs are Made Simpler to Learn, Navigate.”

Many vendors have ‘consumerized’ their corporate software and online services making them easier to learn and navigate by borrowing heavily from sites such as Facebook or Amazon.com. They have also tried to make their products more intuitive by shying from extraneous features—a lesson learned from simple consumer products such as Apple Inc.’s iPod.”

Other vendors are developing products using “user experience teams” in order to build products that are user-friendly and require minimal to “no formal training to use.”

David Whorton, one of the backers of SuccessFactors, an online software company, stated: “We’ve moved into an environment where no one will tolerate manuals or training.”

Similarly, Donna Van Gundy, the human resources director for Belkin, a maker of electronic equipment said: “Employees just don’t want to be bothered with training courses.”

The bar has been raised and consumers expect a an intuitive, user-friendly experience and a simple user interface.

Go User-centric!!


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