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The Demise of Print Media February 9, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Random Musings.
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As a long-time subscriber of PC Magazine, I was distressed to discover that, as of their February 2009 issue, they were abandoning their print edition and moving to an all-digital online publication model.  I’m the first to admit that it seems a bit odd to complain about an all-digital magazine in an online blog, but hear me out.

I’m all for nifty modern conveniences like computers and electricity, but paper provides a delightfully tangible user experience.  The feel of the paper, the sound of the pages, the weight of the magazine, even the smell of the ink: all contribute to the complete sensory experience that is reading.  While you can shift the glyphs to a screen of some sort, you cannot replicate the complete feel of reading.  As more and more publications move to electronic distribution, these non-visual components of reading will just disappear.

I like to read magazines cover-to-cover.  I don’t jump to articles, I get there in time, working through the magazine page by page.  You never know what you’ll find as you read your way to the main body of a magazine. A well-edited magazine places all sorts of interesting tidbits in your way, rewarding your sequential trek through the pages.  Letters, reviews, product announcements, and the like decorate the linear path through a magazine.  Digital magazines have no such meander available to you; you are expected to click (and click and click and click) to go directly to the stuff that interests you.  You may find what you want, but you often miss what you need.

Just as important, magazines go everywhere.  Planes and trains, cars and boats: you can read them anywhere.  When I backpack, I stick a magazine in my pack, to be read by headlamp in my tent after everyone else has gone to sleep.  It’s tough to get a connection in the woods; indeed, the whole point of the trip is to get disconnected.  I don’t want to drag a “reading device” with me on these trips; I just want to bring paper covered with words.  Plus, you can start fires with a magazine in a pinch.  Its name to contrary, no one is going to be burning a Kindle any time soon.

Finally, there is my visual impairment.  I suffer from a vision condition called “getting old.”  Teeny letters on teeny screens were much easier to deal with ten years ago.  Now, by the time the font is big enough to be seen, I can only fit a handful of words on the display.  Constant scrolling is the true enemy of comprehension.

So farewell, PC Magazine.  You shall be missed.  I hope PC World can stick it out a bit longer, but I am not banking on it.  I’ll hang on to my anachronistic role as long as I can: an agent of digital change clinging to ancient media.

Any Questions? February 6, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Random Musings.
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I do a lot of public speaking.  I am that rare person that enjoys public speaking.  I get energized by being in front of people, and there is nothing more rewarding than a captive receptive audience.

For me, the only unpleasant part of the experience is at the end, when that last slide appears: “Any Questions?”  At this point, the opportunity for public embarrassment climbs exponentially.

The worst thing that can happen is… nothing.  No questions, no feedback, just crickets and uncomfortable rustling in the audience.  We’ve all been in these audiences, immersed in the palpable relief that the presenter has finally finished speaking.  Initial relief that questions will not prolong the affair is replaced with awkward embarrassment for the speaker, who wraps things up with a lame joke and heads off-stage, fighting back tears.  Usually, concern for the speaker’s feeling is not so great that anyone will offer a “pity question” to break the silence. We all just look away and develop a sudden great need to check our email.

It’s almost equally bad to get too many questions.  I don’t care how great a speaker you are, the audience will only tolerate four or five questions before restlessness sets in.  I can guarantee that even after Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, the audience would have been staring daggers at whoever asked a sixth question.  You’ve done it: the speaker has answered a few questions, you want to get out of there, and the request goes out: “Any other questions?”  Everyone starts darting glances at each other, daring some insensitive clod to pose another query.  When they do, you can hear the air go out of the room as everyone else gives a quiet groan.

My personal favorite is the unintelligible question.  A person may have a thick accent or may be soft-spoken, but for whatever reason the speaker cannot understand the question.  I’ve been here many times, desperately trying to lip-read from 35 feet away as an audience member takes a third crack at explaining their question.  And it’s never a quick question.  Oh, no.  It has a two minute set-up and three parts to it, and you lost track of the question a half-sentence in.  The best answer? “That’s a great question, but is probably better handled offline.  Can we talk afterwards?”

In reality, we all have a responsibility to make the Q&A successful.  The presentation is a solo act, but the questions and answers are a duet. Whether speaking or listening, be ready to hold up your end of the act, either with short, effective questions or direct, helpful answers.  Everyone gets to go home on time, with a minimum of embarrassment.

Any questions?

When Vultures Circle January 21, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Random Musings.
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I spent fifteen years living in Florida. While some people view Florida as an idyllic tropical paradise of surf, sand, and perky rodents, I see it more as a modern taste of biblical Egypt.  While I left Florida before experiencing all ten plagues, I have actually lived through plagues of frogs, locusts, flies, and hail.  Some modern plagues filled in for the traditional ones; a plague of boils sounds bad, but a plague of tourists can be overwhelming.  Flash floods and brush fires are lovely, and you haven’t lived until you’ve discovered that a plague of wild pigs have uprooted your entire yard overnight.

I reached my tipping point one hot afternoon while trying to mow our yard. I recognize that “hot afternoon” translates to every day in Florida except for the tail end of January; this was actually a really hot day in August, with temperature and humidity both nearing 100.

The mower had broken down. I was sitting next to it surrounded by tools and mower parts, sweating and muttering.  As I wondered if a plague of mower problems was just beginning, I heard a “whoosh.” An enormous vulture landed next to me, no more than three feet away!

Vultures are huge, ugly birds.  Up close, they are even huger and uglier. They spend their days circling high above the Florida swamps, looking for dead things to eat.  In my current state, I attracted enough vulture attention to warrant a further look. The vulture and I sat silently, considering each other.  I could see, in his beady vulture eyes, the assessment occurring.  “Hmmm.  Not dead yet, but close.  Could be dinner tonight; definitely dinner by tomorrow.”

Mental notes taken, he flapped his gigantic wings and took off, leaving me with my mower. I was relieved that I had not warranted an immediate taste, but deeply concerned by the perception of my imminent demise.

We had had enough of Florida.  Soon after, we began looking for a new job and home, which has led to many wonderful things for me and my family.  While the vulture was not the single reason for our leaving Florida, I still think of it as a strong motivating event for finally taking action and getting on with our move.

When faced with difficult, potentially costly decisions, I am reminded of the vulture.  It was the sign that convinced me to get moving.  In our personal and business lives, we often avoid hard decisions and try to defer the pain.  Moving was hard, but staying in Florida would have been disastrous.

Sometimes, it takes a vulture to force the issue and get us moving.  Are you avoiding a decision?  Are you in denial about a looming change to your world? Do you need a vulture?

Say The Secret Word! January 19, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Random Musings, Technology.
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It has become fairly common for sites to enhance their security by asking you to answer a few “secret questions” to confirm that you are, in fact, you when updating account information or even just logging in.  As a result, users now have the opportunity to forget several bits of information for each web site they visit, instead of just forgetting their password on a regular basis.

We use this approach at my company, where users can reset their passwords by answering special questions.  The system we use even lets people pose their own questions, which led to one user to create this question:

Question 1: How do you feel today?
Answer 1: Good

So far so good.  Here is their second question:

Question 2: How do you feel today?
Answer 2: Bad

I kid you not.  Not surprising, this user eventually forgot their password, and it took quite a while for us to figure out why they could never access the automatic password reset system.

Here’s my helpful usability tip for the day: No matter what the secret question, use the same answer every time.  Choose something different from your password, but use it consistently.

People are astounded when I suggest this.  It never occurs to them that the system cannot check to make sure that “groucho” really is the name of the first person you kissed, or your first pet, or your second grade teacher.  It just wants a string of characters that only you know.

Before all the security people reading this freak out, I’ll concede that this is not a security best practice.  It leaves you vulnerable to some tiny chance of a security breach.  You assume all the risk if you choose to go this route.  Et cetera.

But in reality, this is much better than the approach most people take, which is to write all this stuff down on a Post-It note and stick it on the monitor.  (Security-conscious users put the Post-It under the keyboard, or in their desk drawer.  Thanks for incorporating physical barriers into your security practices!)

Security breaks down when security systems are too complicated. People revert to simple solutions just because they want the computer to get out of the way and let them accomplish the task at hand. We need to stop creating complicated, unusable systems and focus on simple, usable ones. With security, as with everything else on earth, it is tough to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Brownie points to readers who know why I chose “groucho” as my answer!

Can You Read This? January 7, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Random Musings.
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2 comments

We’ve all been in this situation.

You’re sitting through some PowerPoint presentation when the speaker puts up a slide and comments, “I know you can’t read this slide, but…”

But what?  “But I thought I’d waste your time with it?”  “But I really like it anyway?”  “But my need to talk completely outranks your need to stay awake?”

But, nothing.  This is one of the biggest, rudest mistakes a speaker can make.  The point of any presentation is to effectively convey information to an audience and leave them with a positive impression of the speaker.  The audience is investing their precious time to gain knowledge.  By giving them a slide that is unreadable, you have wasted their time, diminished their trust, and made it that much harder to teach them anything.

PowerPoint may be one of the most abused tools in the history of computing, if only because you can use it to torment so many people at once in a captive situation.  The purpose of a slide deck is to enhance your presentation, add value to what you are saying, and help your audience follow your ideas.  It is not a shared teleprompter that you read to your audience, nor is it a reproduction of a white paper that you talk over.

Well-crafted slide decks generate interest and keep your audience engaged.  They provide useful illustrations that bring your words to life, or provide a skeltal structure that you fill out verbally. They should be readable from every point in the room, and use color schemes that do not induce seizures among the more sensitive in the audience. And for the compulsive in the room, please make sure the bullets and indents are consistently and correctly applied in each and every slide.  A little time spent making your slides perfect demonstrates your respect for your audience.

Now don’t get me started on the what follows the presentation: “I’d like to give a demo of our product, even though these screens are kind of hard to read…”