Bill Buxton: the CHI community’s Renaissance Scientist

The big name at this year’s CHI was arguably Bill Buxton: long-time human-centred design guru; plenary keynote speaker; Principal Researcher at Microsoft and this year’s CHI Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Despite having a book to promote, it’s perhaps characteristic of Buxton that both his talks at CHI 08 were entirely original and introduced new material to an audience with high expectations.

Buxton’s unifying theme across both his talks and press briefings was the meaning of good design and ways to achieve it. He describes technological gadget development as being permanently stuck in a ‘gold rush’ mentality, whereby the demand for new devices and the excitement generated by novelty is so high that thoughtful design and a civilised pace of development are neither necessary nor desirable – for the manufacturers, at least. It’s only now, he suggests, that settlements are appearing at the frontiers of technology and the impact of good design – Apple’s products, Nintendo gaming gadgets – is making a visible beneficial difference to sales and sustainability.

The way we perceive gadgets and designs is critical too. The radio, he suggests, is a browser every bit as much as Internet Explorer is. Essentially passive, it allows you to browse different frequencies and bookmark your favourites. The multifunction mobile phone /PC is much like the Swiss army knife: up to a point it’s fantastically useful; add one too many features and it becomes too big, too fiddly and just too hard to use. Getting design right, he says, requires the input of multiple experts, and crucially, each one is essential, but not one of them can do it alone. Buxton confirms that Microsoft is reviewing and rebuilding its approach to design, making cultural changes through value changes, which include a greater focus on openness and an emphasis on integrating all corporate and professional roles within a design-aware ethos.

Buxton’s first talk, in partnership with Saul Greenberg, introduced the notion that usability evaluation can be harmful if naively done ‘by rule’ rather than ‘by thought’. Too early in the cycle and it can mute creative ideas that do not conform to current interface norms. Applied to too radical an innovation, and the many interface issues that would likely arise from an immature technology can quash what could have been an inspired vision. If done to validate an academic prototype, it may incorrectly suggest a design’s scientific worthiness rather than offer a meaningful critique of how it would be adopted and used in everyday practice. If done without regard to how cultures adopt technology over time, then today's reluctant reactions by users will forestall tomorrow's eager acceptance. The choice of evaluation methodology – if any – must arise from and be appropriate for the actual problem or research question under consideration.

The closing plenary was different again – and so original that it was just a few hours finished by the time Buxton began. An inspiring discussion of humanity in a technological age, the future of technology and the huge contribution which the HCI community can make, it’s worth reading this excellent account
here, including commentary from Bill Buxton himself (with thanks to Kevin Arthur for bringing it to my attention).

The London Hopper Colloquium – here come the Girls
Source: UN, 17 May 2008
 
Falling numbers of women in computing is causing headscratching across the industry, but you wouldn’t think it judging by attendance at the recent Hopper Colloquium in London.

How can we improve Mobile User Experience?
Source: Mobile Entertainment, 16 May 2008
 
A roundtable of forward thinkers convened in London last month to debate mobile user experience in advance of the forthcoming MEX conference.

HCI for Community and International Development
Source: UN, 15 May 2008
 
Emerging economies, developing countries and the challenges of designing across cultures came under scrutiny at a CHI 2008 workshop on Community and International Development.

The Future of social networking: Mobile Phones
Source: Times Online, 14 May 2008
 
The future of social networking is the coming together of internet-connected mobile phones and location or proximity technology.

Usability for Fun and Profit
Source: The Herald, 13 May 2008
 
An interview with Chris Rourke, owner and director of Edinburgh-based consultancy, UserVision.

Caroline's Corner: Usability of Content is Plain Language
Source: Caroline Jarrett, 12 May 2008
 
An exciting thing happened in the USA on 14th April 2008. It didn't quite manage to make it onto the national news - that day, we were mostly hearing about the Pope's visit to the USA. Any ideas? Any clue from my title? Give up?

HP Labs opens doors to Academia
Source: VNUNet, 10 May 2008
 
HP has unveiled an initiative allowing academic institutions to collaborate with HP Labs in joint research through an open and competitive process.

Email: is it time to get some Training?
Source: UN, 9 May 2008
 
How hard can it be? Apparently lack of email training is costing employers dearly.

Book Review: Mental Models by Indi Young
Source: UN, 8 May 2008
 
A practical, readable and relevant account of key processes in the vital task of researching, building and applying mental models to product design.

CHI '08: What makes a really Great Designer?
Source: System Concepts, 7 May 2008
 
What qualities do elite designers share, and what do they know that other members of the HCI community could benefit from?