Slashdot Log In
The Curse of Knowledge Bogs Down Innovation
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Dec 30, 2007 08:52 AM
from the yay-holiday-sunday-news dept.
from the yay-holiday-sunday-news dept.
Secret of Raising Smart Kids writes ""I have a DVD remote control with 52 buttons on it, and every one of them is there because some engineer along the line knew how to use that button and believed I would want to use it, too," says David Heath, co-author of "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die." The "curse of knowledge," is the paradox that as our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off because the walls of the box we think inside of thicken along with our experience. An article in the NY Times proposes a solution to the curse: bring outsiders with no experience onto teams to keep creativity and innovation on track. When experts have to slow down and go back to basics to bring an outsider up to speed, "it forces them to look at their world differently and, as a result, they come up with new solutions to old problems." Another solution is to force yourself to become a beginner again like making yourself shoot basketball left-handed."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
52 buttons (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That would greatly reduce the strain on the viewer.
HOLY CRAP, I am going to be so RICH!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But I like your explanation better.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't that what management is for?
Is there anything new here? (Score:5, Interesting)
As to self handicapping, we were encouraged do that at judo practice when we were kids - when practicing against a smaller or less experienced opponent, you don't use your best techniques. This cuts both ways, he gets a fair go and you improve your weak areas.
Finally, the reason it has 52 buttons is probably because a competitor's had 51.
Re: (Score:2)
This is one reason why Apple has taken it all by storm - they actually care about simplicity and usability (without being too patronising).
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely. The poweruser would be very annoyed if functions were lacking. And remotes, such as shipped with most devices, are notoriously unconfigurable.
So I'll propose a much simpler solution. Send a 'simple' remote with the devices in question, make the device itself capable of outputting its codes for programming (like, an OSD with send-code for each function, or even better, a _standard_ for rapidly programming remotes, or even better than t
Re: (Score:2)
Steve Jobs - you can do this using the iPhone (technolgy). You have all the components needed. Just make a really sexy unit with multitouch and an IR port, and then make it interface with all kinds of units. Make it work with Apple TV and frontrow too, while you're at it. And Windows Media watchacallit too, if possible.
Re: (Score:2)
My Apple remote with 6 buttons on it. add one for power, and possibly an eject and your done.
In 10 years of owning dvd players I have never used any other buttons. but those 8.
and can someone tell me why there is a number pad on every remote when not a single DVD allows input like that?
Re: (Score:2)
(or if you want to unlock the "ultimate" version of Terminator2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a glass door in front of my components. I don't want to accidentally eject into the closed door, so I intentionally left the eject functons for the CD and DVD players off when I set up my Harmony remote.
And think about it: When you eject a disc, you're going to want to be right there in front of the device to remove the disc and/or put in a new one. Why do you need the remote for this?
Re:Is there anything new here? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bringing it back to the concept of 52 button remotes, I simply don't think that's needed. Half the number of buttons, provide a more intelligent, context aware system, and I imagine many people would have an easier time using it. Watching many older and/or less tech savvy people using a remote, it seems to me like a large portion of their time is used up staring at the huge array of things sitting in front of them - at least 75% of which don't have anything to do with what they're doing. Programmable touchscreen remotes are a step in the right direction, but without the tactile input it's severely lacking (even if you know the layout, you still need to look down to verify what you're doing).
I believe the largest remote I've had was 50 buttons, and I could use it to do anything I wanted to blindfolded (going as far as changing advanced settings on my receiver, I knew the settings it had and the way it cycled through options). Hell, I've got 40 buttons worth of joystick hooked up to my PC at the moment, and know all of them well. That's easy enough for me. I'm pretty far from the standard user though, and I would never expect someone who just wanted to sit down and watch some TV or a movie to deal with that.
Parent
Re:Is there anything new here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of, but not really. I might even go so far as to say that this kind of crypto-libertarian approach to user interface design is the opposite of good design. It sounds good in theory to say that you aren't going to impose on your users, but that in itself is an imposition, because it assumes that the users know what makes sense for them, and punishes those who don't. In most cases, that is a very large majority of your users, and you end up confusing and frustrating them by presenting them with choices that they don't know how to make. The general rule of thumb for usability is don't make the user think, although I will say that it is quite important for the interface to reflect (or at least acknowledge) the user's mental model.
Particularly when it comes to software, most people use computers so that they have to do less, unlike a power user who wants to do more. Some of the best user interfaces are opinionated -- they are biased toward a particular way of doing things that the product designers think is most effective or useful, instead of being a swiss army knife that attempts to do everything. What users are buying is the designers' expertise and knowledge to make choices so they don't have to kind of like how you visit sites like Slashdot because the editors have opinions about what news is interesting.
This raises the question of whether you could do UI/interaction/industrial design using a Digg-style wisdom of the crowds methodology. I would say that you can't, because although people are pretty good at self-reporting whether something is interesting/funny/news-worthy to them, they are notoriously bad at self-reporting how they use interfaces. This is pretty evident when you get customer emails suggesting features that also suggest a UI design ("Please put a dropdown here, a button to the left of that, and a red box underneath that says..."). These proposed designs often violate every usability heuristic in the book, and if we actually implemented the UI in that way, it would test very badly with almost all users, including the user that proposed. Other techniques like eye-tracking headsets could be used this way, but its difficult to do that on a widescale.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
52 buttons sure does sound like a lot, probably even a bit much, but switching to multifunction buttons isn't automatically an improvement for eith
What really happens (Score:3, Insightful)
A problem with abbreviated usability testing is that bad test design creeps in because it is cheaper: Why ask if a focus group delive
Stop taking this so literally, think 'big picture' (Score:3, Insightful)
Frameworks a good example of what I mean. While a framework helps us to get things done, most will no longer think of their own solution to the problem, relying on someone else's solution. This mean a new novel solut
Ignorance is bliss (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Every now and then I end up with something so well designed and thought-out it is amazing. At first one doesn't even notice the great- it just "works" and you get done what you need, effortlessly. All the features you need are there, easy to find, well documented. Makes you want to scream at some manufacturers "Hey, look at this product. THIS is how to do it." (I know, you want an example.... OK, the TiVo fits into that category for me.)
It is difficult for people to pretend to be other people- to have different skill sets, capabilities, thought processes.
Re: (Score:2)
This can work (Score:3, Interesting)
In my case, hiring the best "generalist" IT consultants has consistently led me towards a company full of gifted but undisciplined (including me) staff. I have hired a couple of very disciplined but marginal IT people in the recent past as their adherence to ordering and overall work flow have made the company stronger. In such a situation you usually have to give them a lot of support and keep the other staff from grousing too loudly about it but it can work.
I expect it is a pretty old trick really.
Common sense? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Reviews after production (or design) tend to only scratch the surface; you'll get comments on your almost-finished work, maybe you'll make a few changes but rarely will you come up with something completely different because the tester thought your product sucked. In contrast, getting an outsider in on brainst
Usability (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't read TFA but it seems naive to believe that there are such "teams of experts" designing remote controls and whatnot. Here's the thing: Consumers don't think about usability at all when they buy, and as a simple consequence of that no time or effort is spent on it.
I was talking to a friend who has just spent thousands on a very nice looking oven/hobb. To my dismay (but not my surprise) it still has the hobb controls in a straight line, not in any way related to the layout of the hobb rings themselves, meaning that she will still make mistakes turning the wrong ring off or up, burning food and so on, and she'll constantly have to look at the tiny diagrams by each control to try to work out which hobb ring it corresponds to.
Meanwhile the light switches in her new half-million-pound house are grouped together randomly so you have to experiment by switching lights on and off at random until you hit the right switch.
Her fridge has a temperature control that goes from '-' to '+'. Is that "more heat" or "more refrigeration"?
Oh, and all the power sockets in the house are at floor level, not convenient waist or hand height. Her DVD/TV remote probably has 50 unused buttons on it (I didn't look).
These are #1 usability problem with hobbs, light switches, fridges, power points, etc.; there are books written about it [amazon.com], yet you can't buy an oven, light switch, or new house which doesn't have these problems.
Rich.
Re:Usability (Score:4, Informative)
My own apartment still has them at hand height, and I'd move them all to the floor if I could... but these concrete walls are so hard, I think I can ride out a nuclear war in this place. Anyway, my point is that the article points out a way to avoid the trap into which you seem to have stepped: don't take your own knowledge and wisdom for universal truths.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is, even if you build your own house and have full control over the entire process, you're going to discover not all sockets are exactly where you're going to need them.
Re:Usability (Score:5, Insightful)
Mobile Home - Light switches are all pretty damned obvious as there's only 1 light in each room.
Cheap oven - There aren't many knobs to worry about, and it's pretty easy to remember which is which.
Cheap TV - Only has 0-9 and volume controls on the remote.
Cheap DVD - Only has play/stop/pause and fastforward/rewind, plus a couple of 'menu' buttons to access the menus on the dvd.
Cheap Fridge - Has a dial from 0 to 9 with details on which is coldest.
A lot of your problems don't even stem from lack of design. They come from having too many features.
There are 50 buttons on that remote because the device does SO much stuff. You paid for it, and you'll need a way to control it. Personally, I -use- those buttons, so I don't find them to be annoying.
There are too many light switches in the house because you have so much control over the lighting. Oddly enough, the fix for this probably can actually be -more- technology instead of less. I plan to one day hook up my lights to the computer and control them based on time, where people are in the house, and other factors.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Constantly, or once ? Do you need a degree in systems management to operate a cooker ?
Re:Usability (Score:4, Insightful)
You really should not have to read the manual on a fridge. Plug it in, food gets cold, water and ice come through the door. Game over.
If the fridge is more complicated than that, nearly nobody will do it.
Parent
Re:Usability (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a fairly safe bet that you do not read manuals either. If you did, you would know that they are generally produced either by an engineer with negligible communications skills or by a technical writer who has not been given adequate time to understand the device. There are exceptions, but most manuals for modern equipment are even worse than the controls.
Put the blame for bad interface design and documentation where it belongs -- on the folks why produce them.
Parent
ignorant or lazy house builders! (Score:2)
It shouldn't be too hard or expensive to get someone to reconfigure those switches.
Re:Usability (Score:4, Insightful)
I have invariably lost every remote that was paired with my gadgets. I have a dvd player that will play but no way to select menu options. AFAIC this is piss-poor engineering.
Parent
The curse of knowledge ??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some causes:
– unnecessary time pressure at 'lower levels' due to lack of planning capabilities at 'higher levels'
– general focus on speed (seen as reduction of cost) rather than quality
– expulsion of elderly above 35 from processes, thereby loosing on 'corporate knowledge'
– focus on specialised training, view of general education as a burden and a waste of time
CC.
Open mind (Score:2)
A rhyme... (Score:2)
He's better dead than living still,
once he's past his thirtieth year.
(on the tendency of physics people to be most productive in their youngest years)
I'll graduate when I'm 29. One year of productivity!
software + mass markets = bloatware (Score:2)
Software makes it cheap to add features (especially if design is outsourced to India/China) and mass marketing makes added features seem valuable. Each added feature/button adds another 1% to the market because it attracts people who think they need added feature X. Selling another 10,00, 100,00, or a million players
I don't know much about basketball (Score:2, Funny)
we have loads of outsiders (Score:2)
We have loads of outsiders with absolutely no experience or knowledge of the product at all... we call them managers. The fact that the DVD has so many buttons is more a reflection on the consumer..they want more buttons. Somehow buttons is associated with sophistication to the majority. If there are two DVD players, and one has more buttons on the remote, they will go for that one. Personally, I would be so happy if t
Global unconfident self. (Score:2)
dumb users? isn't that what managers are for? (Score:2)
If it has buttons (a la DVD remote) coat them with a substance that easily rubs off. Whatever buttons haven't been pressed (i.e. still have substance on them) after 5 minutes of boss-time, remove them as they will never be used by other people. If the "on" switch is one of these, toss the prototype as it's obvious no-one will ever use it.
BTW,
Why not just shipping 2 remote controls? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't that be the best of the two worlds?
Engineering Credo (Score:5, Insightful)
Most difficult were engineers who learned clever tricks to conserving memory in their programming. As Moore's progressed, those skills devalued, then became worthless, and finally became negative in value. I had one engineer at late as 1987 who would spend two days effort to save three bytes of memory in his program. Engineers are trained to build on experience, and they expect their experiences to add to their value synergistically as the years pass. The idea that past experience could have negative value was a threat to their personal credos and their career strategy.
It got so bad in my company that I once advocated hiring programmers at age 13, taking them out of school and exploiting them until age 23. At 23 we would force them to retire and finance them to finish high school and college, then move on to some other career. Needless to say, I didn't get very far with that policy.
What should we expect? The whole profession of engineering is based on the concept of incrementally adding to and improving on past experience, from the Romans up to today. Every time a bridge collapses or some other engineering disaster occurs, the public demands that we learn lessons and never ever commit that error again. After 2,000 years of that, how much innovation can you expect?
Contrast that with what is happening at Google. According to reports, Google employees dink around with their own ideas. Sometimes they show up for work on Monday with a bit of prototype code, then they circulate it around the company looking for reactions. The winners survive and the losers disappear without any bridges collapsing or innocent people being killed. That's what so great about software -- it is so easy to prototype. To fully exploit it, you need people who don't know what they can't do.
There was a great book called Computer Wars [amazon.com] made the same point about innovation and corporations rather than individuals. The book's point was that if and when the time comes to change the base business model and technology upon which the company was founded, that the founders feel threatened and the company fails. The battle fields re littered with the corpses of countless companies that fell victim to that trap. Now think of Google again. If and when the day comes that the Internet is no longer the big thing, will Google be flexible enough to reinvent itself or will it just die?
How about yourself? if someday the sun came up and the Internet was no longer important, could you reinvent yourself? Can you even imagine that possibility? Probably not -- your thinking box won't allow for such possibilities.
Or.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a MacBook, with the Apple remote. How do I jump to chapter 13 of a track? I hit "forward" 12 times. Why? Because some usability guru thought simplicity was more important than functions I use daily.
Personally, I would rather have the power to perform complex task simply (and let the non-power user ignore the 48+ buttons they never use) than not have the ability to perform the tasks easily because someone took out the button.
Why pick on engineers? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm tired of hearing engineers blamed as being uncreative, uncooperative, stubborn, "need to think out of the box" people. It's a generalization based upon limited knowledge and fear of those people.
The axiom is true of every other field or profession I can think of. Do you think politicians are thinking outside the box these days? Or are they sticking with what worked in the 1920s? How about natural scientists? Einstein went to his grave refusing to believe in quantum entanglement calling it "spooky action at a distance". Marketing people? Have you seen a really different car ad in the past three decades? Accountants? Bound by limitations of math. Their numbers just have to add up and like bridges falling down if you do something shaky you get Enron type accounting.
Oh! you meant children and artists are creative. First, children. They draw on paper and come up with crazy new ideas. Well except that the things they draw can't be built due to physics of materials and usually they're crazy ideas can't be built because they aren't practical enough to be profitable or affordable. They don't have an understanding of constraints and constraints must be factored into any product. Second, artists. Come now... really look at the works of Jackson Pollock. Are his later pieces really that much more outside of his box than his first splatters of paint? I went to a gallery exhibit once and one artist painted nothing but cloud scenes over country sides and the other made nothing but abstract, headless sculptures of narrow shouldered big assed women. No artists do not think outside of their boxes any more than engineers do.
The reality is that the world, people and the universe impose constraints on any projects. As any person gets older they learn what works to keep them alive and what does not and it is very effective. It has been very effective for ten of thousands of years. Do not eat the pretty frogs no matter how hungry you are. "Out side of the box" dictates: "consider that this frog is different." NO! do NOT eat the pretty frogs... period. You are much better off thinking inside of the box.
Engineers are some of the most creative people I have ever met. They are given a goal, often with no direction of how to get there and they must reach that goal while always satisfying very tight constraints. This type of creativity is very hard. It's easy on canvas with paint but a canvas picture of an engine doesn't have to be manufacturable, it doesn't have to be profitable, it doesn't have to produce a certain minimum horsepower, it doesn't have to spin at a certain maximum revolution without seizing the bearings, it doesn't have to be made out of a certain material yet be strong enough and weigh less than a certain amount, it doesn't have to fit in a limited size cavity or connect to other components in a functional way. Yet engineered products have to have enough creativity in them to accomplish all of that and more.
Software engineering is no different. If lines of code are considered like bolts, screws and components; all of which provide some functionality. Then there are as many individual pieces in any application you use today, be it games, Word, Mozilla, than there are in a space shuttle or strokes of a brush by Monet.
The real disappointment is that the art and creativity that engineers produce is rarely recognized or appreciated. And it should be. It is so creative, in fact, that most people don't even know it's there or could understand it even if it was explained to them.
Engineers have their own wu and it is very, very strong.
March 1991 Exploration and Exploitation? (Score:3, Insightful)
March, J. G. 1991, 'Exploration, and exploitation of organizational learning', Organization Science 2(1), 71-87.
As I understand it March argues that new participants are required to learn new ways of doing things (just as the FTA does). March goes further though and argues that some kinds of organizations (often unconsciously) force 'rapid socialization' on new participants, bringing them in line with the groupthink quickly. He argues for a balanced socialization period, in which the organization can actually learn from the novel perspective (although not so long that the organization doesn't get back to exploiting its knowledge).
There's lots of good literature citing this article too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
MSFT unfortunately will never be able to think out side of the box that way. someone should send them the orange box, and portal.