The Internet is Truly Awesome (Leonard Bernstein Mahler edition).

David Denby wrote a nice piece in the New Yorker a little over a year ago about this ten most "perfect" orchestra recordings of all time.  Coming in at Number 5 was Leonard Bernstein's Mahler 7 (the second time through) with the New York Philharmonic. (FWIW, I know seven of his choices, and love them all).

If one looks it up on the NY Phil's website, one finds a link to Lenny's marked up score of the piece, allowing us to see, among other things, directions from the composer he really wanted to make sure got  emphasis.  As such, the internet allows us to see how Leonard Bernstein went about thinking about one of the great, quirky pieces of all time, at any time we wish.

This is truly awesome.

John Roberts is supposed to be a smart man.

But he makes a specious argument.  He says that because in the presence of Voting Rights Acts, there is no disparity in voter turn-out, there is no need for a Voting Rights Act.  Huh?

Are models that assume linear utility useful?

I just saw a paper on how the desire of households to match with particular houses could explain housing market dynamics--in particular why house prices are more volatile than incomes.

Performing such an exercise is very difficult, and requires simplifying assumptions.  One of the most important simplifying assumptions in the paper is that utility is linear--that people value their last unit of consumption just as much as their first.  This assumption is clearly wrong--we know that marginal utility diminishes in consumption.  Yet the assumption was necessary to make the model tractable.

So do we know more about the world because of the model or not?  I really don't know.

If in 1987 you bought the average house in the average place...

…you have about broken even relative to the consumer price index. The Case-Shiller National Index for March 1987 was 62.03; for March 2013, it was 136.70.  The Consumer Price Index in March 1987 was 112.7; in March 2013 it was 232.77.  So the Case-Shiller Index has risen by  120.4 percent in 26 years; the CPI has risen by 106.5 percent.  So in inflation adjusted terms, the average house in the average place has risen by 13 percent over the past 26 years, or a little less than half of one percent per year.

[At the suggestion of Austin Kelly, I looked to see what would happen if I used the unit-weighted FHFA index instead of the value-weighted Case-Shiller index.  I found that based on FHFA, real house prices rose by 11 percent since 1991 (the first year for which data are available), or a little less than .5 percent per year.  So even though the index is different, the result is the same.]

Reposted from Forbes.

Style vs. Substance in Mobile Software

Although we’ve all been talking about mobile computing for years, the smartphone and tablet markets are still very young, and changing rapidly. Many app and web companies are struggling to figure out how mobile works and what makes it different from the more familiar world of websites and personal computers.

The depth of the confusion became clear to me recently when, as part of a research project, I had the chance to watch a huge archive of videos of users trying out mobile-specific apps and websites. The results were surprising. Many users struggled to figure out even basic tasks, and I saw the same design mistakes repeated over and over by different developers.

I’ve written a whitepaper on the findings, with many details and examples (you can download it here).* In this post, I want to highlight the biggest problem I saw in the tests, and what I think it means for all of us.

The most common problem I saw in the tests was users struggling with mobile apps and websites that prioritized beauty over usability. Too often, we as an industry equate an app that looks simple with an app that’s easy to use. Those are two entirely different things. Stripping all the text out of an app and hiding all of the buttons makes for a beautiful demo at TechCrunch, but a horrible user experience for people who are trying to get something done with an app.

We tell ourselves that this is OK, relabeling confusion as “intrigue.”  How many times have you see an expert online say something like this: “Users enjoy the process of discovering new functions in your app as they gradually explore its interface and learn its hidden features”?  From watching real people use apps, I can tell you that’s lunacy. What delights most mobile users is getting things done. The only time they want to explore an app’s hidden nuances is if they’re playing. In a game or other entertainment app, cryptic Myst-like interfaces make for an engaging puzzle. In all other apps, puzzlement is a sign of bad design.

Here are three examples of the trouble we're creating for ourselves:

Low contrast. A trend in modern graphic design is the use of low-contrast graphics and text: light gray or blue text on a white background, or dark gray text on a black background. It looks sexy in print and on the web, but causes problems in mobile. Smartphones are often used outdoors, in situations where any screen image is hard to see. Low-contrast items can completely disappear in direct sunlight. Often companies don’t realize that this will be a problem because they test their apps indoors, or do design reviews by projecting screen images in a darkened room.

If you think this is just an isolated problem, check out the weather app in iOS 7. I love the look of that white text that Apple superimposed over a pale blue sky with puffy white clouds. But can you read it? How will it look in the sun?

Cryptic icons. There are a few icons that mean the same thing on all mobile platforms. For example, the magnifying glass means “search” everywhere. But in most cases, the mobile OS players have used icon designs as a point of differentiation. The table below shows some conflicting icon designs in Android and iOS:

The last two examples in the table show similar icons in iOS and Android that have different meanings.

Some developers respond to this diversity by creating separate versions of their mobile app for each OS, with different icons in each version. But users are not as easily segmented. In the tests, I saw cases in which iOS users assumed the Android icon definitions, and vice-versa. The situation is even worse for a mobile web developer, who must use the same UI on all platforms. Which icon set should they use?

When icon designs conflict, they cancel each other out and mean nothing. Many apps are studded with icons that the developers think make sense, but that actually are just tiny meaningless pictures in the eyes of many users.

Missing help. I used to think the ideal mobile app would be so simple that everyone could figure out how to use it intuitively. I now realize that’s a fantasy. The tiny screen and other restrictions of a mobile device make it almost certain that people will sometimes be confused by your app.

When mobile app users get confused, the first thing they do is search in the app for a help function. If help is available and properly structured, the user can usually resolve the problem and get back on task.  Unfortunately, in most mobile apps and websites, help is minimal or totally absent. I don’t know why that is. Maybe developers feel adding help would be an admission that their app is hard to use. But that’s like saying you shouldn’t put seat belts in a car because it implies the car might crash. Plan for trouble and your users will be happier.


What it means. The fixes to these specific problems are straightforward:

—Use high-contrast text (black on white, white on black, or pretty close to it). And test your mobile app or website outdoors, in bright sunlight.
—Label all buttons with text in addition to (or instead of) icons.
—Add context-sensitive help to every screen in your app (the help can be as simple as an overlay saying what you’re supposed to do on this screen and what the buttons do).

The harder part is dealing with the underlying design attitude that created these problems in the first place. I don’t know exactly when we went astray on design. Early websites were horribly cluttered, and in reaction to that we started to see a welcome move toward cleaner and simpler designs online (think of Mint.com, which took a complex subject like personal finance and made it feel accessible). The rise of the iPhone, with Apple’s strong emphasis on design elegance, reinforced this trend. But somewhere along the way, we lost track of the user’s needs. Instead of making things simple, we made them simplistic. We hid features for the sake of hiding them, rather than because the user didn’t need them. And we started designing software that would look beautiful to VCs and other designers, rather than being helpful to our users.

If we’re going to permanently solve the usability problems in mobile, we need to readjust our attitude toward mobile design. The most beautiful app is not the one that looks most striking; it’s the one people can actually use. You should design your app to be usable first, and then make it as pretty as you can.

The highest form of beauty is functionality.

__________

*Full disclosure: In addition to my startup role at zekira.com, I’m working on mobile strategy for UserTesting.com. They’re the leading “talk aloud” user testing service, and they gave me access to their test archive for the whitepaper. I controlled the content of the research and the conclusions. And the company had nothing to do with this blog post; I wrote it because I thought you’d be interested in the findings.

Could someone explain the market failure that protecting car dealerships solves?

The Wall Street Journal has a good story today about how car dealerships are (successfully) lobbying legislatures to ban Tesla Motors from marketing their cars directly to consumers.  GOP legislators, who get the willies about regulation that actually solves real problems, are on board with supporting protectionist policies for auto dealerships.

Does anyone really think that the industrial organization of the automobile retail industry works well?  My family buys a car every five years or so, and our experience is that no one tries to exploit asymmetric information like auto dealers.  I have lots of reasons to believe that our experiences are not unique.

What amazes me is that even in the age of the internet, when one can use sites like Edmunds to figure out what to pay for a car, dealers start out by assuming that the consumer is stupid, hope they get an absurdly marked up price, and only get reasonable when they find out their customer actually knows something.

Elon Musk is a visionary in many ways.  With the Tesla, he might make two important contributions--he might free  from petroleum, and he might free us from car dealers.

Announcing "Map the Future," a Better Way to Create Business Strategy

I wanted to let you know that my book on business strategy, Map the Future, is now available. Map the Future is a how-to book for business strategy. It teaches you how to combine information about competitors, customers, and technology trends to spot future opportunities and problems before they're obvious. That lets you grab opportunities before anyone else, and get ready for your competitors' responses before they happen.

This is not a theory or case-study book. It’s a practical how-to manual, summarizing the things I learned in a couple of decades of doing this stuff in Silicon Valley. The book is designed to help anyone who works on strategy, from individual contributor to senior manager. That’s a broad audience, so different parts of the book will be relevant to different readers. To help you find what you need, I organized it like a cookbook. It starts with an overview that's written for everyone, and then dives into very detailed how-to instructions on strategy-related subjects, ranging from how to manage a competitive analysis team to how to assemble a long-term road map.

The central idea behind Map the Future is that most companies think about the future the wrong way. Visionary companies (like Apple) try to impose their will on the future, like a military drill sergeant; analytical companies (like General Electric) try to predict the future in detail, like a weather report. Both approaches fail when there are changes we didn't anticipate. The reality is that you can neither fully predict nor fully control the future, because it hasn’t happened yet. But you can anticipate what could happen. What you need is a realistic map of the possibilities, like a highway map for the future, so you can see where you can and can't go, and then nudge events toward the future you want to create. Map the Future teaches you how to create the building blocks of that future roadmap (using competitive, customer, and technology information), and how to bring them together to drive strategy.

Topics covered include:
—How to segment the market for a new product
—How to create and use technology forecasts
—How to analyze competitors and test competitive products
—How to use market growth forecasts
—How to recruit and manage competitive analysis and market research teams
—How to manage third party researchers and analysts
—How to do competitive analysis and market research if you’re in a small company with no budget
—How to influence in a large company
—How to guide Agile product development through strategy
—How to read the adoption curve and tell when you’ve crossed the chasm

One comment I’ve received from early readers is that the book has a lot of information on what works and doesn't work in large companies. That’s true; steering strategy at a big company is an especially tough task because of the politics involved. But I did my best to also highlight information and techniques relevant to small companies and startups. The sections relevant to small companies are labeled and hyperlinked, so you can jump straight to them if you want to.

For more information on the book, and sample content, click here.

At this time, Map the Future is only available electronically, at the e-bookstores below and through my website. I didn’t want to wait nine months for a print publisher, and besides I’ve spent years preaching the benefits of electronic publishing, so it’s time to eat my own dog food.

PDF & ebook bundle $14.99

(Includes the .mobi file for Kindle; .epub file for Apple, Android, Nook, and most other e-readers; and PDF files formatted for 8.5 x 11-inch pages, 10-inch tablets, and 7-inch mini-tablets.)  

Buy the ebook for $9.99

(Includes .mobi file for Kindle and .epub file for Apple, Android, Nook, and most other e-readers. About 340 pages.)  

PDF version $9.99

(For those who prefer to read PDF files. Includes PDF files formatted for 8.5 x 11-inch pages, 10-inch tablets, and 7-inch mini-tablets.)  

Buy the ebook on Amazon:
Map the Future

Buy the ebook on the Apple iBookstore:
 

Click here to buy the ebook on Barnes & Noble (Nook)  

Click here to buy the ebook on Kobo 

If you have problems ordering, contact me at the e-mail address here.

If you have questions or comments on the book, feel free to contact me directly, or post them below. Meanwhile, here are a few comments from people who reviewed pre-release copies of the book:

“Even before finishing the book, I had written a stream of emails to my professional colleagues, making suggestions for new approaches in our projects, based on the examples I had just read.”
—David W. Wood, Technology Planning Lead, Accenture Mobility

 “I wish all the business guidebooks I’ve read were as good as this one. Hell, I wish ANY of them were.”
—Matt Bacon, Deputy Director, Device Strategy and Communication, Orange-France Telecom Group

“Map the Future will sit on my desk for years to come as an invaluable guide to help me make good decisions about the future.”
—Tom Powledge, VP and General Manager, Symantec Corporation

“Map the Future is a landmark guidebook for forward-thinking executives and strategy consultants.”
—Martin Geddes, Founder & Principal, Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd.

“Map the Future is your cookbook for developing a strong roadmap and strategy. I wish I'd had a guide like Map the Future when I started my career. ”
—Gina Clark, Vice President & General Manager, Integrated Collaboration Group, Cisco Systems, Inc.

A big thank-you to the many Mobile Opportunity readers who offered advice and encouragement as I wrote the book. You helped a lot!