Recommendations workflow

[Carl Symons]

Hello Ivan,

Since the early days of your innovative and provocative ways of
thinking of menus, it has been educational and insightful for me to
read the ideas that you share. Thank you.

More below.

Carl

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 12:55 AM, Ivan Cukic <Ivan.Cukic.ext at basyskom.de> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I see a problem with a current idea/implementation of how the
> recommendations are presented to the user. Well, actually, two problems,
> but one is more important.
>
> Problem number 1
>
> Recommendations are not a part of the normal user workflow, but are
> presented in a separate UI.
>
> For example, Alice wants to add a photo to the activity.
>
> Normal workflow:
> - open the image viewer application
> - find the image
> - add it to the activity
>
> Workflow with recommendations:
> - open the recommendations panel
> - if the image is there, click 'open in current activity'
> - if not, close the recommendations panel
> - open the image viewer application
> - find the image
> - add it to the activity
>
> Another example, Bob wants to see the schedule for the buses at the bus
> stop:
>
> Normal workflow:
> - Open a web browser
> - Navigate to the bus line web site
> - Find the bus you need
>
> Workflow with recommendations:
> - open the recommendations panel
> - if the bus line schedule is in, click it
> - if not, close the recommendations panel
> - open the image viewer application
> - find the image
> - add it to the activity
>
> So, the problem is that the recommendation panel is not a part of any
> standard/normal workflow, and I don't think that anybody will first open-
> and-close the recommendations before each task they do, but rather forget
> about them altogether.
>

This issue definitely deserves thought. The normal workflow is
habituated for most experienced computer users...users who understand
applications, directories, file associations. Recommendations disrupt
that. Intentionally. They cut across the stovepipe nature of the
normal workflow.

Virtually every person working on Plasma Active is a skilled and
experienced computer user. "Normal" in beginning computer classes
includes people trying to use the mouse like an ergonomic stylus
directly on the display...thinking that they can call Google and
someone will tell them what their Gmail password is. Having to learn
that File-Edit-View...is the menu, not something in the paper booklet
that came with the computer. Having such gross motor skills that
selecting a menu item with a mouse is not possible. Each of these
things has happened in classes I've taught.

Alice wants to add a picture.
- Is it the first time for Alice to do this?
- Where is the picture? On a website, in her camera, saved in a directory
- Is the picture visible on the website? Is the image browser open to
the storage media on her camera? If in a directory, how did it get
there? File manager...drag-n-drop, cut and paste
- Are images already present in the current activity?
- What is the most natural act of getting the photo to the activity? I
don't know...I imagine--grab it and drag it to the right place.
- If she opened Recommendations, would she expect to see _that_ photo
or something about moving photos around?

Bob's situation is similar, but has the potential to become more
interesting as Plasma Active is further developed and various sensing
capabilities become available.
- Is he a regular rider?
- Is he in "Ride the Bus" Activity with the browser already present?
- Is he in his hometown? Riding his customary route or a new one?
- What time is it? What does Bob typically do at this time?
- Is he standing still?
- Does the tablet geolocator indicate that he is near a bus stop?
- Is the transportation system enabled for PublicTransport?
- Is there a QR code on the bus stop sign?

Some of this might seem impractically futuristic. Yet each of them is
happening now. Plasma Active doesn't support everything currently, but
hardware does. Qt Mobility does.

Plasma Active Recommendations will be rudimentary in the beginning. I
would prefer to see more sophistication appear in amazing ways...mind
reader, anticipatory, grabbing and correlating information that I'm
not aware of. When I'm wondering about something, I'd like to pull out
the tablet and go to recommendations. Say I've traveled alone to
Portland for a conference and check..."Italian food. You're due.
Italian restaurants are friendly and lively. Economical. Nutritious.
These restaurants are within a short walk, but there's a really good
one on _this_ bus line "liked" by people whose opinions have proven
out. The next bus leaves in 7 minutes from that stop right over there.
A reservation has already been made that will be automatically
cancelled if you go elsewhere." and so forth.

When I demo Plasma Active for regular people, they like what it
already does and what it promises for a user-centered UI. It'd be
great if the workflow continued with a focus on real life use cases.

Carl


>
> *** Problem number 2
>
> The second problem is about the recommendation ordering. Currently, we
> have the score-based ordering which makes sense to some degree.
>
> The problem is that this way, we will get quite a few completely different
> actions mixed together. For example:
>
> Open book.png in the current activity
> Pause the playing media
> Call grandma Ola
> Open article.txt  in the current activity
> Get the bus line schedule
> Open www.google.com in the current activity
>
> I'd propose some categorization here, and if that goes through, we could
> add the system notifications that have actions to a separate category in
> the UI.
>
>
> Cheerio,
> Ivan
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh,
> otherwise they'll kill you.
> ~ Oscar Wilde
>
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