The Blue Umbrella
personal | permalink | by kynan antos
After leaving my house in the wrong coat, having just dropped my daughter off at daycare, driven in the heavy for a few miles, parked my car on a side street, I hoped out of the car, grabbed my backpack, and was walking to Starbucks to work on my computer. I’m crossing a backstreet in Columbia city.
As I’m stepping off of the curb I notice an older gentleman (late seventies) who is standing in the downpour across the street from me holding a blue umbrella. As I approached, he yelled something out at me. I couldn’t quite make it out, as the noise of traffic is always greatly increased when the roads are wet. I waited until I got a few steps closer and called out to him, “sorry, I couldn’t hear what you said.” He firmly restated, “Could you kindly help me put my wife into her wheelchair?”
I swiftly agreed, he promptly fumbled for keys in the pocket of his wet, thin, nylon jacket. I couldn’t help but notice how delicate his hands seemed, as he unlocked and lowered the large heavy tailgate of his covered pickup. Half confused what to do, I realized I should probably hold the umbrella out for him to try and keep him dry while he was struggling with the tailgate. At this point I myself was soaked, and the rain wasn’t letting up anytime soon.
The nameless man quickly setup the wheelchair, as though he had done it a-hundred-thousand times in his sleep. He hurriedly pushed it to the passenger side of his large pickup. I clumsily followed him with the umbrella. The passenger door opened very slowly. Sitting in the passenger seat was a fragile elderly woman. The man directed me to hand him the umbrella, step around the wheelchair, and lift her out of the truck and into it.
As I got closer I realized the woman was wrapped in a threadbare quilt, and both of her legs we’re missing below the knee. I ducked down, leaned forward, and put my arms around her. She leaned forward, put her arms around me, and shifter her weight forward. I asked her before lifting if “she was ok.” She very quietly and patiently, assured me she was ok. I lifted.
She was surprisingly heavier than expected, but I managed to lift her without too much trouble. In doing so her knees came up off of the bench seat of the truck and as I turned pressed into my stomach. In my wet cloth jacket I gently set her down into the chair. The woman and the man both hastily thanked me. As I turned away I found myself muttering “god bless you.”
I walked out into the streets with a heavy heart. As I entered Starbucks the contrast of warm earthy smells, bad jazz music, and artificial ambiance, with what I just experienced only amplified my conclusion.
Love, is truly all that matters, and it’s the only thing that is real.
May 25, 2007
Connecting to WHS via Remote Desktop
ux| windows home server | permalink | by kynan antos
DISCLAIMER …this article is for the less technical readers out there who may not already know how to use remote desktop within their home network. This article assumes that you’re running one of the Beta/CTP builds and have a Windows Home Server connected to your home network. (Odds are that if you’ve managed to get that far you already know how to use remote desktop… )but nonetheless here’s a quick refresher for the record.
Windows Home Server allows remote desktop connections from the computers on your home network that support remote desktop (XPpro, Vista Ultimate, etc…), which is a very, very cool thing. I’m running Windows XP pro and so that’s what I’ll be using in my example. There are two ways to get to remote desktop.
1. Click on: Start->All Programs->Accessories->Communications->Remote Desktop Connection
1.1 Type the your server name (this would be the name you gave your server during setup) and click connect.
1.2 The remote desktop session will open to the home server with an log on prompt.
1.3 Enter Administrator for the username and the Windows Home Server password and click OK.
OR
2. Go to: Start run and type, mstsc /v:servername
My servername is kynanwhs so I type: mstsc /v:kynanwhs
2.2 The remote desktop session will open to the home server with an log on prompt.
2.3 Enter Administrator for the username and the Windows Home Server password and click OK.
Your now connected to the desktop of your server, now the real fun begins 
May 22, 2007
Windows Home Server Console Prototypes 5 and 6 of 11
interaction| process| ux| windows home server | permalink | by kynan antos
Here we finally settled on a toolbar and listview interaction model. While this interaction model is very rigid, less scalable, and less flexible than other possibilities, it has consistently tested very well with many usability participants. This is what is employed within Windows Home Server today.
Prototype 5 (the first iteration to employ a listview)
Prototype 6 (a variant with a details / status pane)
May 12, 2007
IIS+WHS
windows home server | permalink | by kynan antos
I’m thinking about tinkering with various web applications on my Windows Home Server.
In an ideal world this blog would be served up via my home server, but wordpress is a force to be reckoned with. Also not sure if a self host on WHS would hold up to the traffic (not a bad problem to have…)
This got me thinking about all of the folks out there beta testing WHS. Has anyone out there started tinkering with IIS? I recently stumbled across the Subtext Project. This seems like a great place to start. Are there any other .NET based open source blog platforms? Has anyone installed SQL, SharePoint, a custom CMS, etc?
Would love to hear from some folks about their experiences tinkering with IIS on WHS.
May 4, 2007
Rapid Interface Prototyping (RIP) an Introduction
process| ux| windows home server | permalink | by kynan antos
Some folks have been asking what process I employed while working on Windows Home Server. So I’ve been diligently working on a document to help others in the field with complex design problems and reaching for innovation.
Here is a quick introduction and an overview of the RIP process as employed while designing Windows Home Server.
I call it Rapid Interface Prototyping or RIP (yes another acronym to remember.) While I fully recognize that there are other similar methodologies in the development? world (Rapid Application Development-RAD, Extreme Programming-XP, etc…) I hadn’t ever come across anything specific to user experience design.
So while like most things in the world this isn’t an entirely new idea; the application of these ideas to design provides a very agile framework, which produces results, and most importantly the “right design.”
Rapid Interface Prototyping (RIP) is a framework enabling teams to:
- Iterate low-fidelity prototypes rapidly and effectively
- Embrace and manage change as the root of innovation
The RIP framework is separated into eight critical elements each with a specific goal. The name of each element intentionally starts with the letter “R”? to make things easy to remember.
The elements of Rapid Interface Prototyping (RIP)
1. RESEARCH
Understand and document all project constraints.
2. RATIFY
Ratify features against constraints. Cut features which don’t Ratify… early!
3. REALIZE
Rapid-interface-prototyping (RIP) in a virtual environment with low-fidelity results.
3.1.REFINE
Incorporate strengths from each prototype and taper to a final prototype.
3.2.REFLECT
Either promote final prototype to plan-of-record (POR) or Reiterate again.
3.3.REITERATE
Back to Realize applying learning from last design pass.
4.RELATE
Document “plan of record” (POR) relationships to effectively manage change.
5. REPEAT
Back to Realize or each subsequent feature until all features are POR complete.
Watch this space for the final document soon. It’s still a work in progress, but once I have everything finalized I’ll be sure to post it here for comment.
Windows Home Server Console Prototype 4 of 11
interaction| process| ux| windows home server | permalink | by kynan antos
More interaction iteration…
We played around with the toolbar, the property sheet, and commit model with this design.
We experimented with commit on type, rather than using the traditional (OK, Cancel, Apply) buttons of a property sheet.
Prototype 4
This design employs a minimalist approach of committing changes as a user types rather than requiring a button click. There is so much precedent in the Windows environment that this shift was considered highly radical and generally made folks uneasy (even though it’s very similar to Windows Desktop Search/Vista Search).
We were hoping to invest in a functional prototype and test this behavior against the current interaction/commit and see what users preferred, but we had bigger fish to fry, like closing on a final interaction model and designing the product. There was a lot of pressure at this point to start closing down on the interaction.
Perhaps lost UI innovation but not forgotten…
May 2, 2007
I “Heart” Designbum
process| ux | permalink | by kynan antos
This is just simply great.
Issara Willenskomer is a designer that gives everything he designs away on his website as a free download… simply genius.
I absolutely love his philosophy regarding “ownership” and couldn’t agree more.
If only this ideology was more pervasive within the corporate world, then we’d see some serious innovation. You simply must visit http://designbum.net if you have any interest in design it’s definitely worth the read and the download.
Also a shoutout here to Joe Hallock, another designer at Microsoft that links to Issara’s site.
May 1, 2007
Simplicity In UX
process| ux | permalink | by kynan antos
Simple - easy to understand, use, is not elaborate or artificial
1. Simplicity in design is a reductive process (use your eraser before your pencil.)
2. Implement design tenets based upon your personas and value proposition.
3. Adhere to these tenets throughout the product lifecycle.
4. Remove everything possible (this will be controversial, expect to work outside your comfort zone)
(Things to remove text, iconography, features, unnecessary configuration, or settings, etc…)
5. Use rapid low-fidelity prototyping to find the plan of record.
6. Don’t confuse best-practices with simplicity.
7. “To truly create something, you must first destroy it.” - Picasso
April 30, 2007
CTP installation experience
windows home server | permalink | by kynan antos
Here’s an interesting write up of a beta user upgrading from Beta 2 to the recent CTP build, it’s definitely worth the read, check it out.
While I really appreciate the honest feedback about the upgrade as well as the compliments regarding the UI, I would also like to hear some constructive feedback about what you’d like to see improved in a next version.
Be specific about areas in the UI you’d like to see improved, or made more useful. I’ll make sure all comments get to the team.
Windows Home Server Console Prototype 3 of 11
interaction| process| ux| windows home server | permalink | by kynan antos
Prototype 3
Here we started playing with the interaction (a couple weeks later…) and working the information architecture to address navigation and scope.
I still believe interaction such as this would have tested successfully, although it’s not an interaction model that Microsoft has traditionally employed.