Living with Complexity

In this essay, I will give an overview of Donald A. Norman's thoughts about simple and difficult technology what he describes in his book Living with Complexity. He portrays different partnerships between users and designers and I will reply to this topic with the approach based on creativity. It means that creative people can do great design when they are in convenient environment. This isn't the only way of approaching this interesting topic but is one of them.

At first, I must say that the book is written in a fun and fluent way and it is easy to read. The more so, the expression ubiquitous computing itself is complicated enough. The author says that questions that are most frequently asked from him, is Why is our technology so complex?, Why can't things be simpler? He explains that there is a big difference between complexity and complicated. I find the author's illustration of these words clever - the word complexity describes the state of world, the word complicated describes a state of mind.

Designers have to produce things that tame complexity (Norman, 2011). Every element of a design, every move that a designer makes, has a variety of potential consequences (Carroll 2000). Thereby Norman (2011) doesn't think that world should be simpler and sees complexity as good thing, but he is saying that devices can and should be designed for elegant handling of the irreducible complexity of modern life.

There is a widely spread guess about new technology - people tend to think the more complicated design, the better it is. In fact, the truth is the other way round. What we are seeing at the moment is the emergence of a new information and technology environment with a large number of technical gadgets surrounding us daily. The problem isn't about technical gadgets alone, but the difficult design of easy things.

For example, the cover of the book has salt and pepper shakers on it. It seems so elementary which one is which, but it isn't. According to Norman, people around the world split 50/50 on the question. There are several similar examples which are not from that book, but from the life around us. For example, cooking range with its difficult drawings on the buttons which should help to use the machine instead of confusing. Also, alarm clock built in mobile phone. It should be quite difficult task to find a consumer who manages the system right a way without doing hard thinking with his brain, especially a bit older people.

This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be “difficult” designs. I'll bring out the example of airplane cockpit, given in Norman's book. It is complex in different ways but all this stuff is required to control the plane safely. Design analysis is always indeterminate, because design changes the world within which people act and experience (Carroll, 2000).

Machines have rules they follow. They are designed and programmed by people. As a result, they are often designed by technically trained people who are far more concerned about the welfare of their machines than the welfare of the people who will use them, says Norman.

All this leads me to thinking of how could the things that should be simple, designed simple? One is clear, there are designers today and will be tomorrow to create new products. Clearly the solution is in one simple word – creativity.

Two years ago there was a project in Estonia which was called the Year of Innovation. The biggest goal of the people behind the Year of Innovation was for innovation to become a natural part of our lives, both now and in the future, with 2009 creating a new level in the way we think and act. As the project was about new ideas, creative thinking and acting differently, I'll focus on creative thinking and making life better though it.

Some people may think that creativity is something one is able to use only in architecture, music or art. But it is usable in all the areas of life and actually it is even a must to use it. It is important to use it while doing accounting work, being a cleaner or carpenter. Creativity is needed in all areas of life.

Creativity can be defined in different ways, but according to Kolk (2005) it always contains:

* Action (to create something – creativity) – all the feelings felt during the process: conflicts, problems, information search, thinking, feeling that dead end is received because there is no solution and then new solution will come unexpectedly.
* Result, outcome – something which is created, made up – creation. New idea, product, process, etc.

Creativity is human ability to find some new ways to improve old techniques or habits or ways of solving the problems. Hanson (2006) finds that we don't need more suggestion boxes or more street mimes to fill people with a spirit of creativity. We instead need to better manage the flood of ideas we already have and to reward managers for actually executing them.

Theorist say that creativity is something that every person has. Every one can be creative in the area one really like and what inspires for the bigger achievements. There are hundreds of not traditional ways how to react to the traditions and structures which are full of all kind of rules, orders and veto’s.

More choices and competent of making choices designer has, the happier he/she is. More motivated one will be to find the solutions to the problems. There are no hard problems. The key question is HOW to solve the problem not IF it is possible to solve it.

Creative thinking helps to find solution
When people are up against the problems then first should start analyzing the situation to map the area of the problem. But usually this analyzing part is more from negative side not finding totally new ways or creating more opportunities.

While solving problems one should be critical and creative at the same time. If one is too critical then nothing good may happen, but if one is too creative then problem may not be solved. First information should be analyzed and according to that generate some basic ideas, then choose between the ideas, put the idea into practise and last but not least evaluate the result of the solution. Evaluation is important because if one is not estimating the solution, then one may be not learn from the mistakes that may occur. Usually people tend to act whether creatively or critically, but not equally both ways at the same time. Most of them prefer one or another.

Creative people are very curious about things going on around them. They would like to know Why?. And these why-questions are part of their positive attitude for life. If someone asks them “Why do you want to know it?” then creative thinking person has already answer for that: “Because I don’t know it yet”. Knowledge will make this person happy and will make premises to be even more creative in the future, because best ideas will come from the rich mind.

The ideas of creative people can be at first very weird and strange, but when more time pass the better the idea will seem. And therefore creative people need to have ability to flexibly evaluate the solutions and ideas. Very many today used tools didn’t get positive evaluation when they first created. But today everybody use them (e.g computers).

Intelligence and creativeness are directly related with stimulation and quality of the brain. Often one notices something in the environment that needs to be changed. To have better and braver ideas in the future one needs to put some ideas into practise. Carroll (2005) says that there is a tendency to think of the indeterminacy of technology development in positive terms: the world is getting better, albeit sometimes in ways we didn’t expect.

Norman (2011) says that life can be complex but we can learn to cope. Sometimes it is the technologies that provide the complexities; sometimes even simple technologies yield complexity when they come in too many sizes, shapes, and forms. And sometimes it is technology that will rescue from complexity. We need just when we need it.

References:

Carroll, J. 2000. Five Reasons for Scenario-Based Design
London: The MIT Press

Kolk, L. 2005. Loovus – ettevõtte arengu võti
Tallinn: Äripäeva Kirjastuse AS

Hanson, R. 2006. The Myth of Creativity. Bloomberg Businessweek
Retrieved from: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991115.htm

Contribution and review

My role with Gert in the project was to write the story, keep the work in line with it and work with others to create a coherent campaign - we were the Story Managers. We brainstormed many possible scenarios (with some other team members) and came up with few original ideas. At least we thought so. For example, at the beginning we had the idea to create an ironic story about estonians and finnish people in the 90's.

Threaded idea was to have a battle for plastic bags that were quite ordinary "products" for finnish at this time but not for estonians. The game also included the fight for different products which were also very rare for estonians. For example, who gets more bananas or bubble gum in the plastic bag, is the winner.

Later, when we started to program the game, it came out that the idea was not so easy to do. Therefore we had to come up with a simpler and more doable scenario. Then we invented the character called Rocco who started to fight with the cafeterias and its owners in his small hometown.

Considering the whole project I liked best the management of the group that allowed to share the roles. This way everybody could contribute in the part of the campaign they had most skills.

Unfortunately we were too late with finishing our work and we can not say that we are good time managers, but I was nicely surprised by the spirit of the team members. For example, during the last week (mostly) programmers spent their nights and days building the game and facing different problems, thereby enjoying the whole process.

At the end, we managed to finish the game but reviewing the blue team's game, I somehow wasnt able to open their game. I was using 1.6.5 stable version, but didn't success. In such cases it would be great to have some more knowledge in technics and programming.

Though, The Battle of Wesnoth game was a great experience, because I didn't know about such kind of OS-based games.

Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow is a Canadian blogger and journalist, science fiction author, activist and the co-editor of Boing Boing. Doctorow believes that the laws of copyright are too strict. He finds that digital media rules should be much more lightened and the creation (and files) should be available for everybody for no cost. He has this opinion as far as nobody will earn money with other author's product without having the copyright.

He is against to digital rights management, that is used by many companies such as Sony, Apple and Microsoft. He doesnt find it right that digital rights technologies try to control the user and forbidding copying (for individual use).

I really like the way he thinks of copyright. He is not prohibiting the use of his works and he has found his business model, by earning money by selling his books and articles, also performing by giving speeches and sharing his knowledge, etc.

IT companies using Open Source as a part of their business strategy

There is one Estonian company that is made on PHP and MYSQL platforms - Edicy. Therefore it is not the best example but still half of the business model is using open source as a part of their business strategy. Edicy was created in order to provide businesses and individuals a service to create professional websites easilly and without any technical knowledge. For example, one can create individual site really fast by using simple tools provided.

Better example of the open source business model is Joomla that uses entirely open source model in their business. Joomla enables to build websites on OS solution and it is free to use for everyone - therefore it has become one of the most popular sites sharing the software for websites.

And then Red Hat that is world's leading open source provider. The company truly believes that open source creates better software. And when everyone collaborates, the best technology wins, they say. Additionally to the above mentioned leading OS provider, Red Hat is also the world's most trusted provider of Linux.

Copyleft

Copyleft can be defined as the opposite to copyright. When copyright protects author's creation, then copyleft has the purpose to maintain the freedom to use, spread and modify the creation by other people. The first and most spread copyleft licence is GNU GPL that holds the right to protect the user.

Copyleft licences give usually the user rights to research, use, copy, modify, share and distribute.

Example of weak copyleft is Mozilla Public License that is a free and open source software licence (for different Mozilla softwares: Application Suite, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc). Example of the strong copyleft is the mentioned GNU GPL - it means that the original author has the most of the rights to the creation.

FSF vs OSI and Battle for Wesnoth

FSF vs OSI
The biggest difference between the terms Open Source Initiation and Free Software Foundation is the point of view, but both are created for free use. That means a possibility to develop and create, instead of using a software as a basic help for creating something.

The meaning of the term 'free software' may be a little misleading, because there is nothing to do with money. Actually it is a game of words, meaning a software that allows more freedom for its user. Therefore, the better word for the term would be 'freedom' instead of 'free'.

Open Source, therefore, is a movement - like an expansion for the term FS. It means that the main accent isn't on the freedom, but the possibility to improve and develope the code by having an overview and access of the source code.

There is still lots of confusion between FSF and OSI, as both still seem to refer to the same principles. I differ them this way: 'free software' is all about the freedom user gets in his moves, 'open source' is more methodological and practical way of improving the code.

Battle for Wesnoth
I don't consider a free software game 'Battle for Wesnoth' an easy one, because I am not familiar with computer games. Though, the assignment of making a campaign as a groupwork is challenging, because it gives a real practical touch of FS game.

The logic of the game is to conquer the enemies, thereby, a player has time to think through his moves - time isn't counting. The game is more on strategical thinking than just 'being a first to finish'.

What I like about the game, a user can create a game of his own. One can create a whole new storyline, units, weapons, characteristics, etc. At the same time, the main logic goes the same with other video games: a player gets points by occupying and also extra points by some certain action are available.

As I mentioned before, I'm not a fan of computer games, I definately find strategical games more interesting than games that are on time and where only thing that matters is shooting or racing.

E&L: week10: The Digital Enforcement

The law and rules are the most difficult part of the wide web. A great number of big enterprises are trying to figure out how to protect their products from spreading in Internet. And it seems a bit like a fight with windmills. The opportunities the digital world is offering, are greater than the monitoring.

How can companies pretect themselves from massive copying? It seems, that instead of enforcing the rules that are not followed, it is easier to go with the flow and be innovative somehow. I am not sure if the (copying) restrictions are justified anymore, because it is so easy to get the products in easier way without paying for them. And I'm quite sure that many people doesn't even understand at all that they are doing soething wrong. Therefore - a company should have some new way of protecting themselves at the very beginning.