modular innovation « The Product Guy

The Product Guy’s Great in ‘08

December 31, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

The Product Guy had a great 2008, sharing and exploring products, their experiences, and many innovative startups and the founders behind them, while getting to meet and speak with many of The Product Guy’s steadily growing readership.

And, as 2008 comes to a close, let’s take a brief look at the top 5 posts of 2008 (by popularity) on The Product Guy, starting with…

#5 Modular Innovation 101

Modular Innovations lead to users’ information that is Portable, Shareable, Interoperable, Customizable, Redundant, Accessible and, basically, their own. Here The Product Guy explored the various flavors and concepts behind Modular Innovation.

Trends and other primordial indicators of the emergence of Modular Innovation can be found in many products that are out there, or in development, today on the Internet. This year demonstrated a clear evolution of existing online products, and an emergence of many others, implementing and embracing, to a ever increasing degree, Modular Innovation.

#4 Overgrown Amazon

As part of the series exploring the quantification of product User Experience via Quick-UX, the Aesthetics of Amazon.com were explored.

Every single feature does NOT have to be crammed into the interface. A smart minimalist design will provide just enough of the core functionality up front, and allow for the gradual introduction of deeper features and extras as the user interacts with the product. Amazon.com is a great example of poor Aesthetics.

#3 Quick-UX. Quick Heuristics for User eXperience.

In 2008, I introduced the world to a process I use when quickly evaluating products. In subsequent posts in 2008 (and more to come in 2009) The Product Guy continued to provide examples and elaborate upon the underlying concepts and variables that make up Quick-UX.

The Product Guy’s introduction to performing quick, quantitative assessments of product/user experience.

#2 Best Free Online Wiki Announced!

With so many wiki choices available, how do you choose? The Product Guy explored and ranked the free, hosted wikis available to both the individual and company.

And, just as PBwiki was about to achieve their own personal user base milestone, they too were recognized as the best, free online wiki.

#1 Yahoo News. #1 Online News Site.

Yahoo News represented the first news web product whose experience was studied in a 4 part series on the pros, cons, and suggested improvements (some of which have been implemented) of the top websites’ User Experiences.

Based on popularity, Yahoo News, at the end of 2007, was #1. And in 2008, this article delving into Yahoo’s News experience was the #1 most popular article at The Product Guy.

Happy New Year!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in User eXperience, modular innovation, review, startup. Tags: 2008, aesthetics, amazon, heuristics, modular innovation, news, pbwiki, quick-ux, top, User eXperience, wiki, yahoo. Leave a Comment »

Somewhat Less Del.icio.us

September 1, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

…because Delicious is synonymous with tagging online. With all of the improvements made within the latest upgrade to Delicious, the functionality and procedures surrounding tagging remain minimally and indirectly altered. Primarily, the changes to Delicious (its domain name included) were limited to desirability and usability (discussed last week), with its usefulness marginally augmented.

Lacking

There were no improvements nor innovations of any parts related to tagging. I look forward to seeing a more innovative stance from Delicious and seeing resolute efforts made to…

Encourage and facilitate more tagging,
Add structure and order to the tagging process, and
Improve the searching, exploration, and discovery process.

By no means are any of these (Delicious) next steps trivial, but rather they are steps (most specifically related to the Usefulness of the product) that will need to be continually presented and refined, by whichever company that desires to be a leader in describing the context and content of the web.

Encourage

Tagging is critical to Delicious. Central to success for a user and to the Delicious community- at- large, is the frequent and descriptive usage of tags. With less tagging, or less accurate tagging, users will have a more difficult time locating older content. With more tagging, users are able to better organize, filter, and find saved and new information. With more tagging, the community will be able to better understand the extent of the existing system-wide knowledge, and how it is evolving, as well as the potential it has for impacting themselves.

Today, Delicious encourages tagging by way of simple user interface presentations, inline editing…

…and the display of Popular tags and Recommended tags within the full-screen edit of new content…

In addition, the new Sidebars, by allowing for easier, to both modify and view, access of tags, also facilitate their bundling and usage.

In some sense Delicious has made tagging a little bit easier to understand, read, and do. Substantial in encouraging any sort of online activity is the simplification of that activity. In this sense, there are many avenues to explore. Some of them being…

Make tag suggestions based on the actual content of the new destination page being submitted to Delicious. Then, let the user select tags they feel are appropriate — it is much easier to click a suggestion, than think up a word and type it (e.g. corrected spelling, finer-tuned additions, alternate similar tags). More information can be coaxed from the user with the simple encouragement via intelligent suggestions, which can be appended to a new (or existing) entry with the click of the mouse.

Infer deeper meta information, again based, on the context of the target page or tags already typed. For example, if the user is typing “New York, ” suggest “state” and “city.” Continuing this example, should the user select “city,” additional geo-tags can then be automatically appended.

Identify potential sub-tags based on the context of the already entered tags, leveraging the power of the crowd, and offer suggestions of tags that are frequently related. If an individual enters the tag “person,” suggest some common types of people. If someone types “person” and “moon,” Delicious may identify the other related tags like “scientist,” “astronaut,” and “astronomer.”

Encourage alternate or corrected tags (spelling, more common or specific descriptors)

Add

The most obvious injection of structure is introduced to the tagging process within the latest update via the orderless tags of the Tag Bar…

From more structure comes a reduction in the information / content noise. Presenting just a little bit of structure, or means of organization, has a significant impact on the system utility – from the introduction of a minimally common way of thinking and organizing to helping people focus their tagging descriptions and find new information within different, and possibly foreign, domains.

Simple personal structure, like folders and private tags, would have a greater impact upon this goal — and for those people, and there are more than a handful that use multiple Delicious accounts to organize their bookmarks, they would be able to use a single account to accomplish everything (and probably more, especially without the burden of maintaining multiple accounts).

On the non-personal, i.e. public, additions of increased structure, merely a level or two of hierarchical guidance (e.g. tag categories) could exist to help the user quickly zero in on an accurate description of the new content directly resulting in reducing the “strain” on the user to figure out the right tags to assign, as well as letting them come back later and add more details as they occur to the user, all while still being able to filter and zero back in on the item in the future.

Improve

The latest upgrade added the ability for context-based searching and Tag Bar usability enhancements in an effort to improve the searching, exploration, and knowledge discovery processes.

In the end, this upgrade was quite incremental in nature in so far as the purpose of exploration and discovery are concerned. Here too, knowledge discovery and searching can greatly benefit from an increase in simplification.

Instead of entering, or guessing, one tag at a time, to browse or find content, semi-hierarchical tag clusters, representing concepts and groups of varying scope, could be automatically generated. Individuals would be able to gain broader understanding of the current state of the Delicious environment, the coalescing of tags and ideas, and use them as an alternate means of drilling down.

Another method of simplifying the discovery and search actions can be done through the offering of suggestions for alternate and additional words related to the tags being entered for the search (just like those suggestions that can be made when submitting new content).

Improving the exploration and discovery processes will directly lead to the increased utility and usefulness of Delicious.

…and…

Since Delicious had been acquired by Yahoo (Dec. 2005) change has come very slowly to the product and created a plethora of opportunities within the tagging (and semantic tagging) space that have yet to be fully taken advantage of — but, eventually, either Delicious will choose to lead or other companies, like flickr or twine.

Delicious accomplished a good deal in the way of improving the tagging experience. Now they need to continue, and evolve the functionality of Delicious, (the tagging) and improve the usefulness — lest the mantel for tagging leadership be taken up by other innovators, like flickr, twine, or another up-and-comer.

Share & Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in User eXperience, modular innovation, review. Tags: cluster, delicious, desirability, discovery, encourage, flickr, geo-tag, hierarchy, infer, recommend, search, structure, tagging, twine, usability, usefulness, ux. 4 Comments »

Somewhat More Del.icio.us

August 25, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

With the delivery of the Delicious version 2.0, 9 months after everyone received the initial sneak peak, also came the formal changing of the product name from del.icio.us to delicious.com (no more funny period punctuation) — making the domain name easier to remember, type, and use.

And this is the theme that enjoyably permeates all aspects of the Delicious upgrade – improving the usability and desirability of everything Delicious. Delicious has made wonderful use of color, contrast, flow, and balance. All this results in simplifying all aspects of interaction, providing more intuitive control, as well as bringing to light features that many, including myself, never knew existed.

As part of bringing to light these “secret” or lesser used features, Delicious has made a serious effort in raising the level of social interaction and sense of community. Wherever you look and interact, there is always a sense of connectedness to other people, from the new look of the bookmarks…

…to more intuitive access to other people’s tags and notes on your bookmarks…

…and the priority level navigation to people…

… and their networks…

Throughout the new UX, from the tag bar to context-based searching to editing bookmarks, everything is zippier (also with less page loading and more ajax) and the interactions much more enjoyable.

Known for tagging

The improvements don’t introduce much in the way of new features or enhancements to the concepts of tagging — but, as I continue to find out, these improvements have brought to light many features that always existed and makes others easier to notice and use. That is why, as I denote in the title, the long awaited upgrade is tagged with ’somewhat.’ Delicious has been known for its leadership in the tagging of the Internet. Will this leadership continue? Has the mantel already been wrested by fresher upstarts?

Next week, I will continue with part 2 (of 2) of our discussion of Delicious, this latest product update, and look further at how Delicious 2.0 has taken tagging to the next level.

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring Delicious 2.0 as well as other upcoming, insightful posts from The Product Guy.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in User eXperience, modular innovation, review. Tags: delicious, desirability, tagging, usability, usefulness, ux. 2 Comments »

Facebook says Focus

August 13, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

(Part 1 of 2) The new Facebook is coming. Facebook, the product that brought a whole new meaning to information and application overload, is about to release their new Facebook vision, one with focus.

After adjusting to (and it took a few days of frequent interaction) the re-worked and refined Facebook experience, 2 themes stood out above all others, namely..

Encouraging greater communications and sharing
Discouraging “excessive” application installation and usage

In Part 1 let’s…

Focus on Communicating

The new user experience is evident from the very moment of logging-in. Perhaps the very first thing that all users will now notice, and are driven to notice, is the new action area on their homepage.

Whenever a user returns to Facebook, they are brought to the homepage and, immediately presented with quick actions for communicating and sharing. This is a concept that is altogether absent from today’s currently available experience.

Clicking on any of the options within this new action region jumps the user directly to their Profile page, with the prompt for the desired content automatically displayed. This is direct, quick & easy.

The Profile page, like the Home page, has also been revamped to encourage and facilitate communications and sharing of user generated content (UGC) – from status to links and photos, and more.

The user’s attention is focused on the main component of the page, the Wall; which has been improved with rapidly applicable filters (all posts, my posts, other people’s posts) and easy to use settings.

Facebook’s next generation presents a revived and clear focus on communications. Much of this new functionality reverberates considerably with the capabilities inherent to newer services, most apparently, Twitter and Friendfeed. The new communications emphases will assuredly drive more people to the micro-exchanges of status and the like.

Interestingly, if this implementation had been Facebook’s original implementation, maybe there would be no Twitter or Friendfeed. But this is not the case. This newer implementation, not yet the default for Facebook, did not come first. Twitter and Facebook (and other similar online products) fulfilled the need, filling the micro-communication and micro-sharing void that was present.

While the improvement in Facebook represents a very positive step forward, a very nice addition, Facebook is now following some well established alternatives. For these improved communications to maximize along the path of user experience, they will need to employ Modular Innovation. It will be a mistake if they choose to take the path of challenging the Twitters and Friendfeeds, instead of embracing them. Everyone will benefit from improved integration and 3rd-party data exchange capabilities. For example, allowing users and products 2-way integration and interaction, permitting the use of either Twitter (or Friendfeed) or Facebook to not just be able to import data, but also export and share data between the products, would provide a seamless online experience for the user, allowing the user to check for updates and post updates from either platform — benefiting both the fans and companies of Facebook and Twitter (and other products) while simultaneously strengthening the product-product and product-user relationships.

In Focus

More and more people, every day, are trying out the new Facebook, especially the new communications experience. Will the new product, the new Facebook, succeed in increasing user communication and interaction or will the result prove to be a blurry jumble of ideas?

Check back next week as we look further into the new Facebook, in the second part of this 2 part series about the new Facebook experience, and explore what these changes mean for the users, as well as everyone else, who use, experience and benefit from Facebook.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in User eXperience, modular innovation. Tags: communication, facebook, focus, friendfeed, new, twitter. 2 Comments »

Standard Customization. Evaluating Flexibility through Quick-MI.

August 6, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

Having choices, broad capabilities and feature sets, is definitely a good thing. All of the previously discussed categories of Quick-MI (4 of the 5 categories)…

…represent the critical components that illuminate the key variables instrumental in the sustained success of many current and emerging products, increasingly becoming part of the Modular Innovation trend.

Having the Flexibility, and being easy to grasp and pliable, further enhances the relationships inherent to the emerging products’ trend. Flexibility, in the abstract, prevents important relationships from breaking. Without Flexibility, a relationship becomes rigid. Rigid, brittle relationships don’t respond well to strain, often failing under the pressures of the people and products involved:

control,
self-determination,
change,
etc.

As previously described…

Modular Innovation (MI) is all about relationships, be they between people or products online. In looking at how these relationships are established, maintained, enhanced, and expanded, one can achieve greater insight into the underlying forces shaping Modular Innovation, quantifying the degree by which a product is participating within, as well as evolving towards greater degrees of, Modular Innovation.

Equally important, and another of the 5 categories that make up Quick-MI, is Flexibility. Flexibility is the measure of both the ease and degree of adaptability and customization permitted by a product.

In abiding with the overarching goals of both Quick-UX and Quick-MI (quick assessment for summary, directional guidance, and quantitative comparison), the variables constituting the minimal representative subset for Flexibility are…

Customizability
Standardization

Each variable and category (e.g. Flexibility) is assigned a value that can be compared and combined. When all the categories’ values are combined, they form the Modular Innovation Index of a product.

Customizability

Customizability is the measure of degree of plasticity of the other 4 categories of Quick-MI. The overall Customizability of the core components of Quick-MI as represented via a product’s present capabilities is sufficiently important to be represented by independent quantification.

Of each feature set representative of each individual Quick-MI category, Customizability is the evaluation of the proportion of the present capabilities that can be customized and adjusted to desired preferences. An example of Customizability of a data feed can be found in the permitting of the recipient, via an API, to customize the format of the data feed, e.g. choosing between JSON or XML.

The Customizability variable’s value is the sum of evaluated Customizability for each, individual Quick-MI category; thereby, resulting in a maximum value of 4 (a maximum value of 1 per category: Sharability, Interoperability, Portability, and Convenience). Each Customizability value is determined to be…

0 if the Quick-MI category does not allow any Customizability,
0.5 if the capabilities associated with the Quick-MI category are allowed some Customizability and indication of preference, or
1 if the all capabilities associated with the Quick-MI category can be Customized and have preferences indicated.

Standardization

The benefits and value associated with Quick-MI’s Flexibility category are weakened through the lack of adherence to common practices and standards. The more non-proprietary, standard methods and formats are employed, the more they will be made of use of in the relationships between product-product and people-product. And, in turn, the more resilient will be these relationships.

Some good questions to ask when evaluating the extent of Standardization within a product are…

Is there a non-standard API?
Is the resultant file in a proprietary file format?
Are standard methodologies employed throughout?

The Standardization variable is assigned the value of…

0 if no standard methods or non-proprietary formats are employed within the product,
0.5 if some places within the product make use of commonly accepted practices and formats, or
1 if all of the product’s touch points follow common standards, methodologies and formats.

Fast and Flexible

With too much rigidity, an inflexible relationship can strain and even break. Flexibility of the components of Quick-MI and simplification of benefiting from that Flexibility, through adherence to commonly accepted standards, is crucial to forming strong, sustainable products and product relationships.

Altogether, the 5 categories of Quick-MI…

Sharability,
Interoperability,
Portability,
Convenience, and
Flexibility,

… constitute a sound, representative, quantitative understanding of a product’s ability to foster and maintain relationships both within and without — yielding an oft missed, yet critical, perspective into the success and sustainability of an online product.

Enjoy It, Try It, Tweak It, Discuss It & Share!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in modular innovation. Tags: customizability, Flexibility, heuristics, modular innovation, quick-mi, relationships, rubric, standardization. 4 Comments »

Memorable Utility. Evaluating Convenience through Quick-MI.

July 29, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

Through increased utility and stateful behavior, products are able to improve the User eXperience (UX) as well as strengthen the bond of relationship between product-product and user-product. This manner of contribution, to the strength of products’ relationships, is better understood and evaluated via Quick-MI’s category of Convenience — 1 of the 5 components of Quick-MI.

In my ongoing discussion of Quick-MI we have already explored the importance of…

…as essential components for successful Modular Innovations. Quick-MI consists of 5 components, or categories, that bring to light critical variables instrumental in the sustained success of many current and emerging products, increasingly becoming part of the Modular Innovation trend. Modular Innovation (MI), along with a product’s User eXperience (UX), combine to be strong indicators of a product’s adoption and success.

As previously described…

Modular Innovation (MI) is all about relationships, be they between people or products online. In looking at how these relationships are established, maintained, enhanced, and expanded, one can achieve greater insight into the underlying forces shaping Modular Innovation, quantifying the degree by which a product is participating within, as well as evolving towards greater degrees of, Modular Innovation.

Utilizability
Memorability

Each variable and category (e.g. Convenience) is assigned a value that can be compared and combined. When all the categories’ values are combined, they form the Modular Innovation Index of a product.

Utilizability

Utilizability is the look at how useful the product is from various, diverse, points of entry. Utilizability can also be seen as a look at how product and people relationships are maintained and fostered under non-desktop browser situations. It is a look at the diversity of means by which the product may be able to be put to use by the user. Utilizability consists of 3 sub-variables, whose values are summed to constitute the final Utilizability variable value:

Offline Utilizability
Mobile Utilizability
Alternate Utilizability

Offline Utilizability assesses the dependence upon a persistent Internet connection of a given product. Furthermore, Offline Utilizability evaluates the extent to which the capability permeates all facets of the product. Some products make use of another product called Google Gears in order to provide additional functionality to their products, of which sometimes also includes the ability to use all or part of the product Offline. Google Docs, for example, makes use of Google Gears to provide local, portable access regardless of the current state of an Internet connection.

The Offline Utilizability variable’s value is…

0 if no Offline use of the product exists,
0.5 if some of functionality the product can be used Offline, or
1 if all of the functionality of the product is able to be used whether or not there exists an Internet connection.

Mobile Utilizability evaluates the degree of Utilizability of a product from a mobile product. A mobile product can be anything from cell phone, to PDA, to any other device with handheld-portable intent. A good example of partial Mobile Utilizability is Facebook’s mobile interface. While Facebook does provide an easy to use interface to much of their key functionality, the mobile version of Facebook limits the capabilities (e.g. no access to Facebook apps) that are Utilizable from a mobile device.

The Mobile Utilizability variable’s value is…

0 if no Mobile (portable device) use of the product exists,
0.5 if some of functionality the product can be Utilized via a Mobile device, or
1 if all of the functionality of the product is Utilizable via a Mobile device.

Alternate Utilizability addresses the “other” of Utilizability. How does a product “help” the user use it – beyond Offline and Mobile Utilizability? For the purposes of quick assessment, Alternate Utilizabilty is limited to assessing the degree of Utilizable data and functionality facilitated via alternate products and services. Through what 3rd-party products (digital or physical), or other online services, can the product be Utilized. A new product worth following, Identi.ca, is working on implementing the Alternate Utilizability concept via the OpenMicroblogging protocol — which will eventually allow people to send and receive their Twitter and Identi.ca “tweets” from any Laconi.ca (the ‘guts’ behind Identi.ca) server — completely independent of the current status of the Twitter service.

The Alternate Utilizability variable’s value is…

0 if none of the product’s data is accessible and utilizable from alternate products,
0.5 if some of the product’s data is accessible and utilizable from alternate products, or
1 if all of the product’s data is accessible and utilizable from alternate services and/or products.

Memorability

Most products have some degree of Memorability; typically in the form of Setting Memorability. The more that is remembered, the more Convenient is the interaction as well as the underlying functionality, to use and benefit from, and so too are the relationships to retain, reconnect, and, of course, remember. Memorability is the saving of conditional information and is represented as the sum of 2 sub-variables:

Setting Memorability
Stateful Memorability

Setting Memorability evaluates the degree of Memorability of user settings. Not all settings are always remembered. For example, some products may or may not remember a customized color scheme.

If none of a product’s Settings are recalled upon a user’s return then the Setting Memorability variable value is 0.
If some of a product’s Settings are recalled upon a user’s return then the Setting Memorability variable value is 0.5.
If all of a product’s Settings are recalled upon a user’s return then the Setting Memorability variable value is 1.

Stateful Memorability evaluates the degree of Memorability of user state – the portions of the experience which, upon user interaction, indicate a preference or customization, but are not directly settable as a user setting. For example, some products may allow the user to re-arrange the UI, moving windows around, minimizing others. Within similar products, the user is manipulating the state of the product, and the degree of Stateful Memorability is seen as to how much, if any, of the window positions and similar customizations are retained upon the user’s later return to the product. Another abstract example: Imagine a user Utilizing a product and getting to step 12 of 45 before having to leave. A form of Stateful Memorability that this product may provide is allowing the user to return later to continue from Step 12 and move beyond it, from the desktop, or even a portable device.

The Stateful Memorability variable’s value is…

0 if no state information is remembered,
0.5 if some state information is remembered, or
1 is all state information is remembered.

Conveniently Quick

Success of a product is more than having the most awe inspiring UX. There is a lot more to it. Another component, another dimension of sustained success online is Modular Innovation.

Important to successful relationships is the ease with which one can re-establish and return to those relationships. This Convenience, when present, can strengthen and even encourage the stronger Modular Innovation relationship and bond through well done implementations of utility and retention, Utilizability and Memorability. These conveniences are another key to understanding the trend of Modular Innovation.

Remember, Convenience is just 1 of 5 categories that make up Quick-MI. The other 4 categories are…

Through all 5 categories, combined, a sound, representative, quantitative understanding of a product’s ability to foster and maintain relationships both within and without — yielding an oft missed, yet critical, perspective into the success and sustainability of an online product.

Enjoy, Discuss & Share!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in modular innovation. Tags: Convenience, heuristics, memorability, modular innovation, quick-mi, relationships, rubric, utilizability. 4 Comments »

To Have and Own. Evaluating Portability through Quick-MI.

July 23, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

In my ongoing discussion of Quick-MI we have explored the importance of Sharability and Interoperability as essential components for successful Modular Innovations. Quick-MI consists of 5 components, or categories, that bring to light critical variables instrumental in the sustained success of many current and emerging products, increasingly becoming part of the Modular Innovation trend. Modular Innovation (MI), along with a product’s User eXperience (UX), combine to be strong indicators of a product’s adoption and success.

As previously described…

Modular Innovation (MI) is all about relationships, be they between people or products online. In looking at how these relationships are established, maintained, enhanced, and expanded, one can achieve greater insight into the underlying forces shaping Modular Innovation, quantifying the degree by which a product is participating within, as well as evolving towards greater degrees of, Modular Innovation.

The next of the 5 categories that make-up Quick-MI that we will explore is Portability.

Portability, a key component of Quick-MI, is a measure of degree of ownership and control over one’s own content, as a user. One’s own content is commonly referred to as User Generated Content (and abbreviated UGC).

Exportability (UGC & Settings)
Importability
Editability
Controllability

Each variable and category (e.g. Portability) is assigned a value that can be compared and combined. When all the categories’ values are combined, they form the Modular Innovation Index of a product.

Exportability

Seen by many as dealing most directly with the actual UGC of all the 5 categories of Quick-MI is Portability. And, readily apparent in bestowing the sense of ownership and control over one’s own content and data is Exportability. The ownership and control derives from the ability to download or transfer your content to your local computer or 3rd party service. As a result, the content can be retained independently and re-used independently of the service through which it originated.

Exportability consists of 2 sub-component variables:

UGC Exportability
Settings Exportability

UGC Exportability evaluates the degree of Exportability of the UGC created by a user. This can be anything from pictures to blog articles — works created by the user and used with or simply placed upon the studied product.

Settings Exportability evaluates the degree of Exportability of the settings and configurations that directly impact the UGC and resultant User eXperience (UX). For example, the settings can indicate…

which of the content is public or private,
the color scheme (theme) to use when displaying the information,
the user’s friends that are permitted to view each UGC element,
and more.

The value of the Exportability variable is the sum of the values of the variables: UGC Exportability and Settings Exportability.

The UGC Exportability variable’s value is…

0 if none of the user’s UGC can be transferred or downloaded,
0.5 if some of the user’s UGC can be transferred or downloaded, or
1 if all of the user’s UGC can be transferred or downloaded.

The Settings Exportability variable’s value is…

0 if none of the user’s UGC / UX Settings can be transferred or downloaded,
0.5 if some of the user’s UGC /UX Settings can be transferred or downloaded, or
1 if all of the user’s UGC / UX Settings can be transferred or downloaded.

Importability

The logical progression of ability arising from that of Exportability is Importability. Exportability and Importability are logically linked, however, not inextricably so, as one characteristic can exist without the other. It is not uncommon to find a wiki that allows for the exporting of the full contents of the wiki, but provides no capability to import that which was exported. Importability, within Quick-MI, specifically is the ability permitted by a product to import, or re-incorporate, content and/or settings that were previously exported as well as the product’s capability to manage change, edits, within the imported content.

An example of Importability is demonstrated by Google Base. Google Base allows users to externally edit the content that was stored or generated within the product and then upload and re-combine the edited content with the user’s existing data.

The value of Importability for a product is…

0 if data that was transferred away, exported, from the product cannot be re-imported,
0.5 if the data that was exported from the product can be re-imported, but not edited, or
1 if the data that was exported from the product can be both edited and re-imported.

Editability

Editability is the measure of the degree of dependence the user has upon the product from which the UGC originated, or was modified by, once the UGC has been exported. Without an independent means of editing exported content, the exported content primarily exists as a backup of a user’s data — with limited reusability and flexibility.

If none of the exported content can be independently modified, then the Editability value is 0.
If some of the exported content can be independently modified, then the Editability value is 0.5.
If all of the exported content can be independently modified, then the Editability value is 1.

Controllability

Delving into the ‘where’ of Portability is a look at the Controllability of one’s own data, or UGC. Data can be Portable, but…

How close can you get to your data?

How much control can you exert over your UGC?

Can you “touch” it?

Some social networks allow their users to import friend lists directly from 3rd party services, e.g. email or other social networks. The social networks, may also allow the users to easily add, remove, and modify all their friends information. However, the control of the transferred content, for this example, is limited, since neither the social network, nor the origin of the content permitted downloading or other remote storage of the friends data — thereby, limiting the user’s overall control over the content.

The Controllability variable’s value is…

0 if none of the data can be stored locally or at some 3rd-party data store,
0.5 if some of the data can be stored locally or at some 3rd-party data store, or
1 if all of the data can be stored locally or at some 3rd-party data store.

Swiftly Portable

Success of a product is more than having the most awe inspiring UX. There is a lot more to it. Another component, another dimension of sustained success online is Modular Innovation.

Integral to successful relationships is the inherent sense of control and ownership over one’s own work and contributions. A relationship cannot hold together without the individual’s “ownership,” and resulting control and pride that accompanies. A relationship cannot hold together without Portability, quantified via the Portability score (a summation of the above variable values).

Remember, Portability is just 1 of 5 categories that make up Quick-MI. The other 4 categories are…

Enjoy, Discuss & Share!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in modular innovation. Tags: control, heuristics, modular innovation, ownership, Portability, quick-mi, relationships, rubric. 5 Comments »

At and Between. Evaluating Interoperability through Quick-MI.

July 14, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

In my earlier discussion, I outlined the importance of Sharability to successful Modular Innovations and Quick-MI. Quick-MI consists of 5 components, or categories, that bring to light critical variables instrumental in the sustained success of many current and emerging products, increasingly becoming part of the Modular Innovation trend. Modular Innovation (MI), along with a product’s User eXperience (UX), combine to be strong indicators of a product’s adoption and success.

As previously described…

Modular Innovation (MI) is all about relationships, be they between people or products online. In looking at how these relationships are established, maintained, enhanced, and expanded, one can achieve greater insight into the underlying forces shaping Modular Innovation, quantifying the degree by which a product is participating within, as well as evolving towards greater degrees of, Modular Innovation.

Equally important, and another of the 5 categories that make up Quick-MI, is Interoperability. Interoperability is the measure of the degree of integration permitted.

Interoperability is the means by which information is shared and disparate products can continually exchange information.

Interoperability is about the connection. It is the Interoperable, integrated connection between products that facilitates sharing and exchanging. This includes the ability to make that connection, to establish that relationship; or the hindrance,

thereof. Through the study of Interoperability a clearer understanding can be formed of the immediate benefits achievable, as well as the quantification of these benefits and capabilities.

Connectivity
Redundancy
Legality

Each variable and category (e.g. Interoperability) is assigned a value that can be compared and combined. When all the categories’ values are combined, they form the Modular Innovation Index of a product.

Connectivity

Perhaps the most obvious variable of Interoperability is Connectivity. Connectivity is the means by which the current product can access and interact with external products and platforms. To exchange information a connection must be established and methods must exist that enable the relationship to take hold and let flow the content.

The content can be anything, from basic status information to images and friends lists. Connectivity is typically achieved via an API. A well known example is the Twitter API. This API provides a simple, web-based interface that allows people and 3rd-party products to perform actions, like read messages and status updates of the people on Twitter, as well as submit new ‘tweets’ and direct messages.

Connectivity flows both ways, in and out, read and write. The Connectivity variable value (with a starting value of 0) is determined by way of the conditional summation of the following…

Add 0.5 if the product can read from, “pull-in,” content from one or more external products, and
Add 0.5 if the product can write to, “push-out,” content to one or more external products, and
Add 1 if external products can read from, “pull-out,” content from the product, and
Add 1 if external products can write to, “push-in,” content to the product.

Redundancy

When integrating with another product, is the user forced to choose exchanging information between either product A or product B? Or can both products be used in parallel?

Redundancy is the ability, provided by the product, whereby external products are leveraged to provide replication of functionality and/or content.

Building upon the Twitter theme, some services exist to facilitate this very sort of Redundancy. Most notably, Ping.fm comes to mind. Ping.fm does not force integration with one external product over another. Ping.fm allows for simultaneous, parallel integration with multiple similar products; making the user less dependent on any one of these services, in the event of down-time or other failures. Beyond “peace of mind,” Redundancy also provides for means to replicate content and maintain functionality that results from such integrations. For example, when I use Ping.fm, I can simultaneously send a status update to Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, and Plurk …

saving me time,
replicating my status updates, and
ensuring that I can continue sending updates even if one or more of these products goes offline,

… all attributes, benefits, of Redundancy.

Redundancy can be found on the user-facing side, like Ping.fm, or just under the surface, e.g. using multiple data clouds to store data. The Redundancy variable is assigned the value of 0 or…

1 if multiple external products, per touchpoint, can be (or are being) used to replicate functionality and/or content throughout the primary functionality and interaction points of the product (e.g. everything from status updates to pictures to messages to data storage), or
0.5 if, for each touchpoint, a single external product can be (or is being) used to replicate some of the primary functionality and/or content (e.g. status updates sent to both Twitter and Jaiku)

Legality

Terms of Service and other legal restrictions and requirements have a significant impact on the resultant Interoperability possible, or worthwhile. In some cases, broad capabilities of Interoperability are possible, but only for personal usage. Other exemplary cases, allow for Interoperability, but with an associated monetary cost.

The website, Yelp, provides a range of Interoperability that allows external applications to access restaurant and related data. However, those products making use of Yelp’s Interoperability have the following restrictions / requirements…

Clearly display Yelp branding alongside any obtained content,
Product must be non-competitive with Yelp,
Cannot locally store any obtained content,
And, more.

Legality is a measure of freedom, and allowable range of use and usefulness, of the ability to integrate and be Interoperable. The Legality variable is assigned the value of…

1 if there are absolutely ZERO legal restrictions placed on the Interoperability of the product,
0.75 if commercial use is permitted,
0.5 if only non-commercial use is permitted, or
0 if no Interoperability, via API or other means, is permitted.

Rapidly Closer

Quick-MI is all about understanding and measuring the relationships formed and supported between online products, especially those pioneering the next generation of web products via Modular Innovation. A relationship cannot hold together without the “glue,” without Interoperability, quantified via the Interoperability score (summation of the above variable values).

Remember, Interoperability is just 1 of 5 categories that make up Quick-MI. The other 4 categories are…

Through the growing presence of Modular Innovation, and the important category, the important element of Interoperability, everything is becoming increasingly and rapidly closer.

Enjoy, Discuss & Share!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in modular innovation. Tags: content, heuristics, interoperability, modular innovation, permission, quick-mi, relationships, rubric. 5 Comments »

Permission and Content. Evaluating Sharability through Quick-MI.

July 9, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

The first of the 5 components of Quick-MI, that I will be discussing in greater depth, is Sharability. Sharability is the measure of how much and to what degree information can be shared.

For relationships to work, between products, just like with people, sharing must be present. And to share, to receive, there must be both Permission as well as the more fundamental characteristic, of having something to share.

In abiding with the overarching goals of both Quick-UX and Quick-MI (quick assessment for summary, directional guidance, and quantitative comparison) the variables constituting the minimal representative subset for Sharability are…

Content
Permission

Each variable and category (e.g. Sharability) is assigned a value that can be compared and combined. When all the categories’ values are combined they form the Modular Innovation Index of a product.

Content

Without any Content that can be shared, the ability to share breaks down pretty quickly. The Content that one can share with another can be many things, from that which is personally generated, to Content available to a specific group, to part or all of an individual’s settings / customizations.

Further examples of Content can be seen as metadata, text, images, settings, stories, conversations – a blog post, comments within a forum, avatar image, and identification of one’s favorite topics.

Determining the value for the Content variable is done through briefly surveying the product, followed by the assignment of a value…

0 if there is no Content that exists that can be shared, or
1 if some of the Content is found to be sharable, or
2 if all of the Content, personal, group, global, including all user settings, are sharable.

Permission

Some products allow sharing of Content with only registered users. Others allow sharing within parameters based on the type of user or method of access.

The Permission variable value is broadly determined as the sum of affirmative confirmations to the following conditions (with the starting value of 0)…

If the Content can be shared with everyone, add 1, and
If the Content can be optionally shared with specific groups (e.g. clubs, types of members), add 1, and
If the Content can be optionally shared with specific individuals, add 1.

Quickly Shared

Quick-MI is all about understanding and measuring the relationships formed and supported between online products, especially those pioneering the next generation of web products via Modular Innovation. Relationships have to start somewhere. And, at their start, and an important cornerstone to Quick-MI, is sharing and, therefore, the product’s Sharability score.

Sharability, as the summation of both variables of Content and Permission, when combined with the other categories of Quick-MI…

… present a sound, representative, quantification of a product’s ability to foster relationships both within and without — yielding an oft missed, yet critical, perspective into the success and sustainability of a product online.

Enjoy & Discuss!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in modular innovation. Tags: content, heuristics, modular innovation, permission, quick-mi, relationships, rubric, Sharability. 7 Comments »

Quick-MI. Quick Heuristics for Modular Innovation.

July 2, 2008 — Jeremy Horn

Introducing… Quick-MI
Modular Innovation (MI) is all about relationships, be they between people or products online. In looking at how these relationships are established, maintained, enhanced, and expanded, one can achieve greater insight into the underlying forces shaping Modular Innovation, quantifying the degree by which a product is participating within, as well as evolving towards greater degrees of, Modular Innovation.

Today, Modular Innovation is a prevailing trend that can be described as products and platforms consisting of or facilitating…

Relationships (people-people, products-products, people-products)
Control of Experience (from creation to storage to interaction)
Ownership of Content (personal content from comments to friend lists and more)

Time & Space, UX & MI

Often the initial and continuing success of an online product is solitarily framed in terms of User eXperience (UX). To understand Modular Innovation’s role in a product’s online success is to understand how this trend of relationships (aka Modular Innovation) relates to User eXperience, and can, itself, be quantified for comparison and analysis against other products.

One way to think about the interplay between User eXperience (quantified via Quick-UX) and Modular Innovation (quantified via Quick-MI) is to draw, metaphorically, from physics, namely Space and Time. If User eXperience represents Space, and the variables and characteristics of a product’s UX represent it’s shape and form within that Space, then Modular Innovation aptly would be imputed Time. Like Time, you do not necessarily see or directly interact with the forces (quantifiable categories) of Modular Innovation, but Time is very important if you are, the product is, going to move forward, into the future.

Quick-MI

Quick-MI is the simplification of the quantification of the Modular Innovations, the products and platforms, that make up the trend of Modular Innovation. The method I describe below is a great way to build a summary description with quantifiable and comparable metrics, representing the level of Modular Innovation present within a product.

More detailed and extensive heuristics are, of course, possible (I frequently evaluate along many more variables in my studies of Modular Innovation). Quick-MI allows you to dive into a product and quickly extract valuable, representative data points.

The Quick-MI evaluates the degree to which a product successfully addresses the following 5 categories:

Once quantified, the values associated with each of the categories are summed to represent the Modular Innovation Index of a given item (product, platform, etc.).

The characteristics evaluated within each category constitute a minimal representative subset that accurately evaluates the Modular Innovation Index while adhering to the goals of a method that are (1) quantifiable, (2) comparable, and (3) quick.

Some of the questions that are answered within the categories of the Quick-MI are…

Within Sharability

Can functionality and content of a product be shared?
With whom can I share?
How much can be shared?

Within Flexibility

What aspects, and to what extent, can I customize the Sharing, Portability, Interoperability, and Convenient parts of the product?
Do the methods and formats adhere to commonly accepted standards?

Within Interoperability

Can the product interact with external products (and vice versa)?
Are there legal restrictions placed on content or other interactions?
Does the available interoperability facilitate redundancy and stability?

Within Portability

What content, if any, do I own?
Can I take it with me?
Can I control my content without any UX penalties?

Within Convenience

From where, and at what times, can I access the product and the content?
With what degree of ease can I shift between venues and times?

Not Without UX

Modular Innovation should not be seen as an alternative, isolated, judge of the overall success or failure of a given product, but rather as a central, complementary, influential part of the equation. Together, MI and UX shape the course of evolution and the eventual success or failure of a product.

Modular Innovation is Relationships

The more relationships, the stronger the relationships, in turn, the stronger and broader can be a product’s acceptance, support, and success. These relationships comprise Modular Innovation. They are the trend. They exist within the products that are themselves Modular Innovations, albeit to varying degrees, as measured via Quick-MI. They are the characteristic elements (described, at a high-level by the Quick-MI categories) that propel a product forward (or a lack thereof, stalls or otherwise hinders its progress).

The role and presence of relationships within and between people, products and platforms are ever increasing in importance and influence. They represent the next substantial evolution of the internet, beyond simply the data, but, now, to all the spaces in between. They can be seen in the sub-trends, or minor trends, with respect to Modular Innovation as a whole, like those of semantic web and data portability.

These relationships can be quantified, analyzed, built and expanded upon. Once quantified, products are better understood, and clearer courses are able to be set for improvement and solidification of the elements within products directly relevant to Modular Innovation, directly (yet, not exclusively) relevant to sustained success. And the current methods of Quick-MI, itself evolving and adapting, can be used in observing, from industry trend to individual product, the impact and the role of Modular Innovation on products and related trends.

Enjoy, Discuss & Share!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

PS Try it out, tweak it, learn more about Modular Innovation and share you experiences.

Add to Social Bookmarks:

Posted in modular innovation. Tags: control, Convenience, experience, Flexibility, interoperability, modular innovation, ownership, Portability, quantify, quick-mi, relationships, Sharability, trend. 7 Comments »

« Older posts

Overview

Categories

Recent Posts

Pages

Top Posts

#5 Modular Innovation 101

#4 Overgrown Amazon

#3 Quick-UX. Quick Heuristics for User eXperience.

#2 Best Free Online Wiki Announced!

#1 Yahoo News. #1 Online News Site.

Lacking

Encourage

Add

Improve

…and…

Focus on Communicating

In Focus

Customizability

Standardization

Fast and Flexible

Utilizability

Memorability

Conveniently Quick

Exportability

Importability

Editability

Controllability

Swiftly Portable

Connectivity

Redundancy

Legality

Rapidly Closer

Content

Permission

Quickly Shared

Time & Space, UX & MI

Quick-MI

Within Sharability

Within Flexibility

Within Interoperability

Within Portability

Within Convenience

Not Without UX

Modular Innovation is Relationships

Search

Archives

...around the web / vc

...elsewhere

...for techies

…about creativity / ux

…on flow / process

…regarding movers