Mobile Phones and 2D Barcodes Enable Signage and Lifehacks

I stumbled onto a conversation on the use of machine-readable 2-dimensional optical codes (A.K.A. 2D matrix code, barcode and symbologies) to communicate with mobile phones equipped with cameras and scanning software. Applications of 2D barcodes have expanded from its origins in tracking automobile parts and shipped packages to include convenient access to information for wayfinding and advertising; well, at least those are the earliest and obvious applications as of today.

Consider the case where Kim is new on campus and wants to take a bus back to her dorm, which is on the other side of campus. Kim sees the QR-encoded (a 2D symbology) sign below the usual bus stop sign, captures the image with her camera phone, starts the application which reads the URL encoded in the image, and which then launches the phone's browser to display the bus schedule. Kim selects her destination; the Web application reads her location from the phone's built-in GPS and the current location of the nearest bus arriving at her destination (read real-time from the bus' GPS unit) and displays the estimated time to arrival.

Another day, Kim walks through downtown. As she passes the theater, she notices a few plays and concerts that pique her interest. She pulls out her mobile phone and photographs the 2D barcode in the theater's digital sign. She will look over the schedule when she returns to her room. Ah!, the new Korean restaurant. Her phone can usually read signs across the street, so she's got that captured, too.

This is not the future. It is life today in urban Japan, soon to arrive in your neighborhood. I simulated the experience using barcode displayed on a computer screen, and captured images on an iPhone. I downloaded the application 2D Sense (free) from the iPhone App Store to read the sample 2D barcodes on this post, on theiMatrix site and on Wikipedia. For example, the image on this page should take you to my blog at cjohansen.org. If you have problems, as I occasionally did, you can zoom the barcode images before capturing it, and the actions will be more likely to work. You can create your own barcodes, which is where I created the image above. 2D Sense delivers on encoding for URLs and text, however, it doesn't currently support Google maps for location information - that is way too bad, but I'm sure will be fixed soon enough. Note that mobile phones bought in Japan have made the experience seamless, and the sight of 2D barcode signage is said to be common.

There it is: 2D barcode signage - a new aspect of the ambient information ecosystem. Tell me, oracle, what beasts lurk here?

A Kindle in Every Backpack?

The Kindle 2 does one thing really well: it allows you to read books. The display is superbly designed, allowing the user full reading time free of eye strain. The device is light-weight, mobile, with a simple interface for paging. However, the designers of the Kindle must have felt that reading books was not a compelling basis for commercial success, because there's lots of additional functionality. Now, adding features beyond the core design is risky business behavior; Amazon won a few bets, and so far, have lost a few.

Sleepy operation

The Kindle is operated with a drop-down menu and navigated with a multi-selector button. It's a familiar design pattern from smart phones that most people will understand with a little practice; that is, if they can stand the wait. Sluggish response is, by far, the most common criticism of the interface - in operation of the device, and in paging through a book. Especially annoying is the black-flash of the screen when paging through a book. Despite the quality of the reading experience, the flash turns some peoples' enthusiasm to rejection. It's amusing that so many people try to interact with a touch screen. I feel myself badly wanting a touch screen at times.

Annotations and User Content? Not yet

The Kindle allows the reader to search, bookmark locations and write annotations using a multi-selector button and full querty keyboard. It seems natural to operate the keyboard with two thumbs because of the way you hold it. However, unreasonable force is required to press the keys, which slows the speed of writing. The keys have a diminished tactile quality which discourages touch typing and further slows the write speed. Taken together, the design choices seem peculiar and user unfriendly. Neither are there keyboard shortcuts like those found on an iPhone - two spaces print a period, for example. And what about your data? If it's locked in the Kindle forever, it's not very useful. It turns out that bookmarks and annotations are stored in files associated with the book, and already the Kindle has been hacked, but so far Amazon has not developed a solution for mere readers.

Note to content sources: design for mobile devices

There are other problems. Imagine a commuter dashing off to the train. She's wants to read up on the todays' parade of misery and horror in The Wall Street Journal. Jakob Nielson tested this use case and concluded that there were design errors that created an "awkward interaction design and poor support for non-linear content [in English: the short article format of newspapers]." Undoubtedly, that sluggish menu and the odd multi-selector button is irritating to use, however, the interface of a news source is decidedly not a problem with the device, but with the information design of the news source itself. And however distasteful to Web designers, people do in fact learn the tricks of navigating important sites - and so convention eventually becomes a "standard".

Easy reading for the disabled?

The Kindle has some interesting and useful innovations. The buzz around the new machine-generated text-to-speech capability seems to have created a hope that it may help people with certain disabilities. Sorry to disappoint, but the audio is limited to content only, and does not assist in the *operation* of the Kindle. Whereas the Kindle is not ready for people with blindness or poor vision, simultaneous reading and reading the text display may indeed have some applications for reading and learning disabilities. We eagerly await the time when text-to-speech is extended to include device operation.

It's a mobile device, not a workstation

Kindle also is shipped with an experimental web browser. How you judge the effectiveness of the browser depends on how you view to the Kindle itself. Is it a computer? Is it a mobile device? Is it merely a book reader with an odd, experimental browser that might come in handy? Comparing the browser to Firefox, or Safari will disappoint. It's black-and-white rendering seems quaint, it doesn't respect style sheets, and will rearrange the structure of the sight in ways that will horrify designers. However, compare the Kindle's browser with those in other mobile devices and you can tell a much different story. It is now understand that sites designed for Firefox, Safari, IE, and other large-screen devices provide users of mobile devices a very poor experience. The old Web standards mantra of good rendering across multiple platforms is largely a false hope. If a site's stakeholders want mobile visitors they must provide alternative page designs for them. And for those sites that do - not surprisingly, Amazon happens to be one of them - the experience is excellent. To conclude: think of the Kindle as a mobile device, accept that most Web sites suck when viewed in mobile designs, and you will be happier.

Finally, there was one really awful behavior that desperately needs to be changed. While I was happily absorbed in a science fiction novel the Kindle suddenly blanked and performed a software update. Grrrrr. The update process took only 4 minutes, including restart, but it brought me back to Home rather than the page I was reading - kind of rude and unrefined, that Kindle.

Is .mobi the Return of the Web Content Ghetto?

In 2003 I built, if not the first, one of the earliest web sites for mobile phones and PDAs at Penn State. Addressing the common criticism of stale (i.e., forgotten, and presumably static) content on separate, mobile-optimized sites at that time, this site was dynamic, pulling its content from the same database used by the main site. The only technical difference was that the templates used WAP2 markup and offered a single column for content, simplified navigation, and limited market branding.

Nonetheless, the problem of content ghettos serving mobile devices has contributed to the relatively slow adoption by early users. But these early attempts at least tried to address the limitations of the small form factor and engage the mobilized users. The larger barrier has been, of course, the complete unsuitability of most sites to rendering in mobile devices' browsers - until recently.

Enter dotMobi, an industry consortium to fix what ails the mobile Web, and to innovate for better user experiences. Great, right? Well, maybe, but .mobi introduces new problems of it's own. .mobi had a surge in popularity when the initiative started. And today, .mobi and kindred WAP sites account for about a quarter of the mobile web traffic. But, the trend is down as devices and browsers are increasingly sophisticated and able to provide the rich application functionality of their larger implementations. Traffic to social web sites accounts for about 40-60% of web traffic worldwide, and you can be sure that WAP sites won't deliver the user experience that drives their popularity. We can adapt a yarn from Wall Street here: don't fight the trend.

Moreover, since .mobi is a top level domain, it has already segmented itself from most web resources in education, government, non-prophet and personal domains, i.e., those who are least likely to own and manage additional TLDs. In fact, the mission of .mobi is primarily to serve small and mid-sized business. Even the 4 letter TLD itself is problematic, as on many devices "mobi" requires 9 keystrokes. Why, those same devices could type out "wap" in just 3.

Sites with a .mobi TLD would have access to some powerful applications. For example, a device database service hosted by .mobi will allow fine customization of web sites for any of the hundreds of devices on the markets. If that sounds a little insane to you, I suggest that maybe you're right. (Although, it does sound like a boon for developers ;-). If making content ghettos sounds evil, how will you reckon with ghettos of user experience. I've had similar concerns about customizing markup to optimize for iPhones' Safari browser. And while evangelizing standards and accessibility I railed against code forking during the Microsoft and Netscape browser wars. Yes, these are concerns and my position is inconsistent, but I'm still trying to justify the hassle because the iPhone user interface is exceptional. Confused? So am I, but I'm watching with fascination as standards and best practices emerge. What do you think?

Create Your Personal Narrative with a Portfolio

The social software market makes me dizzy. I don't have time to test drive every new idea, and it's crazy to have to reinvent a new account and identity for each service. Most services that I try, I just hand back the keys and keep walking, leaving a few crumbs on the carpet. A few have stuck to my windshield, and they do make work and life better and fun - those services I use and very much appreciate. With some services I have a love-hate relationship, like Twitter. In the end, I find my homes-on-the-network mostly by the testimonials and referrals of colleagues and friends because, well, I want to hang out at the same bazaars as they do.

It struck me recently how important these same services could be in more personal ways. Consider: I leave digital artifacts in many places. They're the work of my profession - code, ideas put to business and technical documents, presentations, blogs, email - lots and lots of email (!!!), random notes. They're also the things I produce because I breathe - photographs, more email, more blogs, resumes, random notes - lots and lots of random notes. That's a staggering amount of crap!

Sometimes, especially when I need a little order, I wish for some principle to make order happen. Something like a file cabinet for the random notes, a glass display for showing off the really nice stuff, white walls to hang photographs, a safe for privacy, plans to keep hearth and home safe.

What brings this to mind was a presentation and meeting with scholar and author Darren Cambridge at the IMS Consortium meetings at Penn State. Darren "is fascinated by how people use technology to craft the narratives of their lives". He studies portfolios and how, among other things, they can be used to effect organizational change. All great stuff, with lots of potential for my team and institution as well, but what struck me was more personal. Portfolios are the basic currency of artists and technologists in many fields; why had I forgotten that? Extending the standard idea of portfolio as a body of evidence, he developed the idea of portfolio as a narrative of personal life which connects all the pieces of digital life into a "symphonic self". That's when bells rang.

So, the new tasks at hand: consolidate, narrate, organize, and put a few of the thousands of photographs online. Create my personal cacophony. More on tools for portfolios later. Find out more about Darren Cambridge.

Lessee, where are those taped recordings from my Afro-Cuban-Latin band days? And do I still have that photo of my first cat Ling Mew?

Traveling light

On a recent trip to the CIC Accessibility and Usability Group meeting at Michigan State, I took a risk by leaving behind the Macbook Pro in exchange for the opportunity to trim 5 pounds of laptop and a few more pounds of extra gear. In its place, I took my iPhone (version 1.4 FW). Notes typed, information read, and videos viewed on a 3 1/2 inch screen. And enough flash memory for my african/latin playlist to leave the iPod home, too. Even cut my clothes to a minimum, bringing only a loin cloth. Not.

I was surprised and delighted by how quickly I adjusted to working exclusively with the iPhone. The Safari browser and touch screen interface made nearly all information retrieval and reading easy. Many web sites suck beyond redemption and are unsuitable for small screens, but none were completely unreadable if I really needed to. Mail, thanks to Google IMAP, was great. I couldn't (or didn't know how to) read the Word attachments that still pass for collaboration with some groups, but that feature is touted for version 2 of the operating system. But I did edit several wiki pages, and yes, the styles for wiki pages suck enough on a desktop screen, and are just horrible for small screens. (I mean, didn't anybody tell the designers that 140 character length lines with 9 pixel fonts are torture to read on any device?) But, yeah, when it had to be done, it was done.

Notes were terse because how can they be otherwise with a one-finger non tactile keyboard; but with focus and an emergent shorthand they were actually better for it. This post was written and published on the iPhone, and you can thank me that it wasn't in my shorthand ;-). Phone, music, video and business on the same device - that really was cool, and very travel friendly. And I feel a trend acoming, as devices continue to grow in capacity and sophistication.

What I miss most on the iPhone is the lack of concurrency of applications. I can't keep IRC chat going as I pull in a web page. I have to leave the Settings app as I try to log in to ambient Wi-Fi. Lack of concurrency is, in my view, the key weakness in Apple's application strategy. Watch out, here comes Google Android.

Technology Changes Patterns of Work: The Case of CMS Deployment

As deployment of Web content management gains traction in the institution, the technology advocates and champions assume that the promised benefits will sweep through the work-a-day culture toward its fulfillment. Lo, we are perplexed and saddened when disappointment sets in. In one college, fours years after these early adopters shelled out huge licensing fees and annual maintenance fees for a CMS solution to what seems an organizational problem, only small sections of their Web presence are ostensibly under content management. I say ostensibly because the content consists of entire pages from the old static sites - markup, navigation, presentation and all (yes, even <font> tags) - have simply been dumped into a database. The resulting site uses few of the advantages offered by content management such as smart navigation, plain text content, metadata, content re-use, and scheduled publishing. Distribution of content maintenance might happen, but authors  have been  assigned to maintain the old &ldquo;content&rdquo; - embedded, bad markup and all. Failure is nearly a certainty. Pain exchanged for pain is still pain. Somebody, please, end this endless cycle of pain.

I just demonstrated the anti-pattern at work: without changes in processes and practices, failure of new technology deployment is probable. But who do we have to blame but ourselves? How can we expect our people to deeply understand the extent to which our work changes if we don't change our processes as part of  technology deployment? Better still, shouldn't we try to predict the acceptance of new processes before the decision to deploy is made? We are not Borg - resistance to change is certain and will often kill any chance for success.

Evaluating return on investment in new web technology is difficult - but not impossible. But, we are overworked and understaffed, so important metrics are not developed simply because the effort isn't bearable; crucial data isn't identified and collected; evaluation of success or failure becomes merely an opinion. Worse is the suspicion that in some cases it may not be even a clueful opinion. In the end we cannot truly evaluate the success of technology projects in the absence of data. And so it goes with planning new technology investments. 

Blogged with Flock

Manage and Share Mail Lists with Gmane, Opera and Del.icio.us

My inbox sags from the weight of unread email. I curse the thousands of unread messages enumerated on my client. Many of my unread messages originate from lists. That is why I love gmane.org - "Gmane -- Mail To News And Back Again". Gmane is a mail list archive best explained at gmane.org/about:

Mailing lists are funneled into news groups. This isn't a new idea; several mail-to-news gateways exist. What's new with Gmane is that no messages are ever expired from the server, and the gateway is bidirectional. You can post to some of these mailing lists without being subscribed to them yourself...

But now there's new problem. To read netnews I need a netnews reader. It typically downloads the lists locally, so now I'm filling my hard disk with crap, and I have a new client to maintain. Wonderful... But I avoid trading one problem for another using the built-in news reader in the Opera browser, and I track *and share* news groups in Del.icio.us. Opera handles the news:// protocol very nicely and allows easy integration with tagging and bookmarking.

A typical use case: is to search del.icio.us for tagged news links and locate the news group at Gmane. (Clicking a news link with Firefox is harmless, if a little confusing at first, because it does nothing and gives no feedback). Links to new news groups are pasted into Del.icio.us with added tags and descriptions; they're ready for recall, and to share among your colleagues and network. The Web interface of Gmane allows easy searching, sorting, browsing and viewing of list posts.

Gmane is not a comprehensive archive of newsgroups, but it's easy to subscribe a list. A important feature for list owners is that you can also import list archives.

HTML meets good ole netnews and everyone wins.