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Our thoughts on making great software
After our first round of product testing, we decided to make big changes in the look of our Infovark product. This is the first of an occasional series of posts about the design of the Infovark Beta.
We use the Infovark mascot — we call him “the Vark” — to represent our company. We use his head for our avatar in twitter and as the favorite icon for web bookmarks.
I like the simplicity and abstract look of the icon. It has a certain Scott McCloud less-is-more aesthetic to it. As Scott explained in his book Understanding Comics, the less detailed an illustration is, the more it invites the viewer to use their imagination to fill in the gaps. The more detailed a drawing, the more it represents a particular thing. We wanted Infovark to be about you, the knowledge worker, and not about us, Gordon and Dean, two guys making software.
We also chose an animal mascot for a reason. The Infovark name was partly an accident, but it stuck because it was a useful metaphor for us. Infovark does a lot of work in the background for you. It watches files, catalogs email, indexes content, and other useful things automatically. We liked the image of an animal digging through your information, trying to find interesting items and making associations between files, contacts, and email. It made our software feel friendly and helpful, like an enthusiastic pet you’ve taught to do neat tricks.
For round two of our product design, we wanted to try giving the Infovark just a little more personality. But not too much personality. Ever since Microsoft introduced Clippy to the world — and to much popular scorn — software developers are mindful about overeager assistants. Does anyone remember these guys? It’s a fine line that we’re walking here…
So after much consultation, this is our attempt at something a little cuter, with a touch more detail.
What do you think? We’ll use this new character on our redesigned blog theme, and possibly in the product itself. Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts!
Somewhere, there’s a dusty old librarian who thinks Google is a messy and irresponsible way to find things, and gets very annoyed when you don’t put the index cards back in the right place in the catalog. I found this one under ‘P’ for Process…
I spent some time with a client the other day who was trying to determine the best way to manage how information flowed in their organization. They were having a difficult time, because they had laid out a series of discrete steps that needed to be followed by every person in the organization — first the document arrives, then the document is entered into a tracking system, then it is registered as a case in the case management system, and so on. There are thousands of these kind of processes being discussed in meetings all over the world while we drink our morning coffee. I must have sat in on hundreds of meetings like this.
The problem within this organization was equally commonplace. The staff weren’t following the process. The software was too weird/hard to use, and it forced them into working in a way that they weren’t used to working. So, because they wanted to get on with their work, they were going around it. Composing documents outside of the system, and saving them on their local machine or network share. Getting things done despite the fact that they were aware it was ‘the wrong way’.
Typically the way these meetings go is like this: Once it’s determined that people are doing it wrong, somebody insists that they need to start doing it right. And that it’s “Their Job” and they should “Do what they’re told” and then the meeting usually decays into “Change Management” and how best to force acceptance of a system that nobody really wants.
There are numerous problems at work here. The centralization of authority forces people to rebel. That happens all the time. There are probably other leadership issues, and poor planning, and issues of control. There’s a lack of willingness to admit defeat, or worse, good money thrown after bad. There are loads of other subtle personal and political issues that are also affecting the outcome. But you know what? The work is actually still being done. And it’s not like the workplace is ever going to be free of these problems — they’re part of human social behavior.
The whole time, while this conversation was playing out, I was thinking about Infovark, and how we are trying to solve this problem in such a completely different way.
Infovark encourages the user to do whatever works for them, and then publishes all the output (or lack of output) to their team. We don’t control “the process” at all. We simply measure the output and let folks figure out what works and what doesn’t. With an open and transparent system, the best methods ought to rise to the top. Why not let the best processes emerge as memes within an idea economy?
Is this irresponsible? Perhaps. Bad eggs could try to game the system. Clueless bosses could incentivize perverse behavior. And certainly, in some businesses, overall consistency might be more valuable than quality or efficiency.
But frankly, rigorous approaches to process control aren’t common in most businesses. It requires discipline and training to enforce strict guidelines. It costs time and money.
The Strict Process Control approach to productivity and efficiency might make sense from an academic or manufacturing perspective. But nothing pollutes a good process like a bunch of humans. Now, where do I put this index card again?
Here’s a philosophical topic to start the week. Information Aesthetics, a blog about design and data visualization, posted two videos from Maya Design. The first discusses the term information, the second architecture. As a software developer, these are terms I use all the time, but I often have a hard time defining precisely what they mean.
It’s a bit of a challenge for our marketing and communications strategy. The core API for Infovark, our product, is fundamentally nothing more than an information architecture. We use this core to create solutions that help knowledge workers get stuff done. But if information and architecture are tricky to define, you can imagine the confusion involved in combining the two! But where was I?
The two videos do a great job describing the terms information and architecture from the classical point of view.
These definitions are classical in the sense that they rely on Plato’s concept of an idea being separate from a particular physical representation. There are other approaches. For example, Marshall McLuhan believed that “the medium is the message” — that you can’t separate the meaning from the representation that conveys it.
Did I mention this was going to be a philosophical post? I did warn you…
Even though the topic is a bit academic, there are real-world debates going on about representations and forms right now.
How many differrent representations of you can be found on the web? There’s your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook page, your StackOverflow account…
Much of the buzz surrounding the open stack technologies is due to there being a way to finally associate a person with all the stuff about that person on the web. Wikipedians talk about having “canonical URIs” — a web page address that points to the master record for an article, rather than a particular translation of an article. And if you support or build software that uses the REST pattern, you’ll face this issue. What is the base address for this web page? How do I get to the HTML version, the XML version, the PDF version, or the MP3 audio version of the page?
There’s not a “right” answer to any of these questions, but we usually adopt certain conventions for dealing with them. Libraries had to figure out whether to keep Braille editions of books together with the print editions, for example. After all, they’re the same book — they contain the same message — but the format is different.
We’re working out those same conventions on the Internet right now with regard to privacy, data portability, text translations, podcasts vs. screencasts vs. print, etc.
As Infovark moves into its third year, people often say to me, “Er, when are you going to ship something?” and “What is it you’re building, anyway?”
And you know, as much as I’d like to launch the product right now, I can’t. Infovark isn’t finished.
When Dean and I started in October 2007, we thought that we’d be able to get a public beta ready within about 6 months. We were really wrong. Here’s the link to the sad trombone.
In the absence of a product announcement, Dean and I have been talking a lot about the problems we’re trying to solve (in between furiously refactoring, debugging, re-bugging, etc.). And as we move into a new year — one that will definitely see the first public release of Infovark — I thought it might be prudent to re-visit exactly what it is we’re building, and why. So here’s a few of the questions that we’ve encountered over the last few years of running our start-up.
What is Infovark?
Infovark is a smart software agent that lives in your computer. It follows you while you work, remembers things, and learns a little bit about what you do, who you work with, and the documents and emails that you create and use. It then uses this information to build you a spiffy personal website that’s all about you, your work activity, and your stuff.
You can make your website available to your colleagues, so that they can browse your Infovark, leave comments, post updates, and access the information you choose to share with them.
Why would I want it?
Because you are busy, and you don’t have time to answer repeated requests for information, or spend ages digging around for answers. Infovark helps you find things that you work with, and share them with your colleagues. Infovark also provides you with insights based on your work patterns. For example, It will suggest related documents for an email you’re reading. It will help you determine which is the most recent version of a document. It’s very helpful.
If you’ve ever thought that you could benefit from having a personal assistant, or someone who took notes for you, then you will love having Infovark on hand.
Will it run on my computer?
If you’re running a version of Windows from the last 5 years, then chances are pretty good that it will.
How do I use Infovark?
Once you install Infovark, it asks you a few questions about what you do and don’t want it to include. (This process doesn’t usually take too long.) And then, you just get on with doing whatever it is you do.
When you get stuck, lose, or forget something, you can ask Infovark what it knows about it. If your friend at work also has an Infovark, you can browse to it instead of their Facebook page. (If you want to do work stuff, that is. Infovark doesn’t support throwing sheep.)
Does this mean that all my stuff is always shared?
No, only if you let it be shared. You can keep Infovark and all of your information to yourself if you like. You can also tell Infovark to ignore whole folders or files, so that it won’t consider these when making recommendations or suggestions.
Does this mean my Boss can spy on me?
The content that you choose to share will be available to your colleagues, including your boss. So, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t actually add any value to an organization, and likes to avoid doing things, then you probably shouldn’t install Infovark. It might make you look bad.
On the other hand, if you’re delivering awesome work, and you want other folks to know about it, then Infovark is a great way to get the word out. Sending an occasional reminder about your valuable contributions couldn’t hurt during the next annual performance review, could it?
I thought you guys were all about solving Enterprise Problems. How does this help?
Enterprise Software is unwieldy and complex because it abstracts all business processes into a single piece of software. It’s designed to solve management problems as seen from the executive level. But the real work happens on the front lines, at the individual level — where we all do our jobs.
With your permission, your Infovark will contact other Infovark agents within your organization, allowing you to share, search, and collaborate with your peers. In the process, Infovark builds up a realistic, organic representation of your organization’s knowledge and insight from the ground level. We think that enterprises are made of people, and genuinely useful enterprise software has to acknowledge that fact.
We also have future plans for an Infovark Team Server that will aggregate individual Infovarks and provide a more holistic and structured approach to information management.
That’s all well and good, but when can I have it?
Soon! We have one more private beta to go through, in Feburary this year — look for our public beta sometime in April. (Really, if we don’t get to share this with somebody soon, we will explode.)
Meanwhile, Dean and I will endeavor to keep posting our thoughts and ideas here as we go. You can also drop by our other Infovark blog, The Underground. The Underground shares our experiences as programmers — and contains some more technical details about our approach.
A big thanks to all our readers, and smart folk who’ve left comments for us over the last year. We love hearing from you. Happy 2009!
Here’s some interesting thoughts to begin the new year. The Epicenter blog at Wired just posted the Rules of the Garage, the shared vision of the founders of Hewlett Packard.
(Yes, HP actually began in a garage. It was the original Silican Valley start-up. It makes the Burrow look posh by comparison.)
To the list, the author John Abell adds six additional quotes, also worth pondering.