The Design Principles Behind Google Glass and the Social Influence It Could Have

I have always found it interesting to peer behind the veil a little of nascent technology and learn how it is developed. On these Google Glass developer pages you can dig a little deeper into the design principles behind one of the four current Google X lab projects.

Aimed at developers building on the Glass platform, or as they coin it developing Glassware, they outline the simple design principles needed:

  • Design for Glass – Don’t try to replace a smartphone, tablet, or laptop by transferring features designed for these devices to Glass. Instead, focus on how Glass and your services complement each other, and deliver an experience that is unique.
  • Don’t get in the way – Glass is designed to be there when you need it and out of the way when you don’t. Your Glassware must function in the same way.
  • Keep it relevant – Deliver information at the right place and time for each of your users. The most relevant experiences are also the most magical and lead to increased engagement and satisfaction.
  • Avoid the unexpected – Unexpected functionality and bad experiences on Glass are much worse than on other devices, because Glass is so close to your users’ senses.
  • Build for people – Design interfaces that use imagery, colloquial voice interactions, and natural gestures. Focus on a fire-and-forget usage model where users can start actions quickly and continue with what they’re doing.

But what is most revealing and consequently most fascinating for me is the focus on language and how this is being tailored as an integral feature of this type of technology. It is being coined as “wearable tech” but in many ways the proximity to us, to our physical persons means that the device or platform has to work with our own language settings.

The “natural speak” commands will be the most potent way these devices will become closer to our everyday lives and influence them too. We can wear them, however until they work seamlessly with the idiosyncrasies of our spoken word, they will always fall short.

The developer pages offer some of the following examples for voice commands needed to develop on the Glass platform:

Guideline Good Example Bad Example
Is general enough to apply to multiple Glassware, but still has a clear purpose “ok glass, learn a song” “ok glass, learn something”, “ok glass, learn a song on guitar”
Is colloquial and can explain Glass features in a conversation “ok glass, take a picture” (“You can use Glass to take a picture”) “ok glass, take picture” (“You can use Glass to take picture”)
Is comfortable to say in public “ok glass, find a doctor” “ok glass, find a gynecologist”
Brings the user from intent to action as quickly as possible “ok glass, find a recipe for” (this allows users to speak “chicken kiev” and immediately see the recipe) “ok glass, show me a cookbook” (this forces users to look through a list for what they want)
Avoids brand words “ok glass, make a video call” “ok glass, start a hangout”
Is long enough to ensure high recognition quality (at least three syllables) “ok glass, make a video call” “ok glass, hangout”
Fits on a single line (less than 600px wide at 40px Roboto Thin) “ok glass, add a calendar event” “ok glass, create a new calendar event”

One of the most interesting directions these sorts of guidelines take us is the way that such a device or tool may influence our use of language and consequently the way we think. For example the focus on the commands being “colloquial”, “comfortable to say in public” and how they should strike a balance for technical purposes by being “long enough to ensure high recognition quality (at least three syllables)”. In a way this is describing how Glass users will have to talk to interact successfully.

Google Glass

With such high constraint the written form that is displayed needs careful thought on Glass and in many ways is some of the most influential aspects of the product design as, in some way, it makes real the experience and relationship you have with the wearable device. It becomes a response to your commands. Here are some of the guidelines for the written form:

Keep it brief. Be concise, simple and precise. Look for alternatives to long text such as reading the content aloud, showing images or video, or removing features.

Keep it simple. Pretend you’re speaking to someone who’s smart and competent, but doesn’t know technical jargon and may not speak English very well. Use short words, active verbs, and common nouns.

Be friendly. Use contractions. Talk directly to the reader using second person (“you”). If your text doesn’t read the way you’d say it in casual conversation, it’s probably not the way you should write it.

Put the most important thing first. The first two words (around 11 characters, including spaces) should include at least a taste of the most important information in the string. If they don’t, start over. Describe only what’s necessary, and no more. Don’t try to explain subtle differences. They will be lost on most users.

Avoid repetition. If a significant term gets repeated within a screen or block of text, find a way to use it just once.

Again we might explore how these simple guidelines strongly influence a user as they depict the character of the technology being worn. BJ Fogg has written about the social cues we pick up on from technology and their social influence. Bear these elements in mind when we are learning and experiencing more everyday about personalised or wearable technology.

…people respond to computer systems as though the computers were social entities that used principles of motivation and influence.

As shown in Table 5.1, I propose that five primary types of social cues cause people to make inferences about social presence in a computing product: physical, psychological, language, social dynamics, and social roles. The rest of this chapter will address these categories of social cues and explore their implications for persuasive technology.

Primary social cues

We have had a quick look at how the Language cue is being carefully tailored on the Glass platform (and elsewhere in Search and Siri of course) and it is pretty easy to begin to understand how the other elements appear in the user experience.

Psychologically we pick up on how a device such as Glass can learn our preferences and begin to provide hyper contextual information to us, as explained earlier in one of the design principles: “The most relevant experiences are also the most magical and lead to increased engagement and satisfaction.”

The psychological connection here is linked to the social dynamic and how it would seem our technology is cooperating positively with us. The reciprocity of our interactions would fall in line with some of the research BJ Fogg outlines in his chapter – the more helpful technology is to us the more engaged we become and the more likely we are to reciprocate.

The social role of the device is an interesting one – my son would happily call Google Search his assistant or guide and so it would not seem too big a step to appreciate a wearable technology being a close ally in getting life done more efficiently.

The physical cue is perhaps the most curious because it is not so much a floating disembodied AI head doing our bidding but something that is closer to being part of us. Physically it would seem the cue has in fact become much more subtle in the fire-and-forget notifications and the seamless in-vision experience. Yet the overt nature of wearing the technology has caused some interesting consternation, raising questions about privacy and safety.

Funnily enough I have not had the chance to play with the device or even experience it yet, but the developer pages have certainly helped me to better understand the direction things are heading in and made me reflect about the influence this type of technology will have on the way we speak and think.

If you are a Glass Explorer I would love to hear your thoughts on some of the subjects raised in this post – please share a comment below.

Pic: Google Glass by wilbertbaan

Google Teacher Academy UK 2012: My Reflections and the Future

Earlier this week the Google Teacher Academy ran for a second UK outing at the new London offices on St Giles High Street. It was a privilege once again to have the opportunity to help plan, organise and be part of the 2 days.

50 educators from around the world came together for some rapid professional learning and discussion and the chance to work alongside Google employees to help make change happen in their communities. These are a handful of my reflections about the 2 days and what the future may hold for the event.

2012 04 04 17.45.54

Google Engineers

One of the most unique features of the teacher academy is the access to and contribution by Google product managers and employees to the learning. During our 2 day event we had the chance to spend some time in the company of YouTube, Google Docs and Google+ product managers who joined us for hangouts. The Google Docs team were there in force and shared with us some incredible new features to this ever changing tool. Jeff Harris the product lead for Google Docs document, presentation, and drawing editors did some great demos and talked about the future developments of the tool. It is always exciting to have access to this type of group and have them share their expertise with us.

Google+ Potential

One thing that the GTA did for me was to put the potential of G+ back on the table, not because of any great demo or future road-map session, it was more to do with a group using it loads. There was lots of sharing to just the GTAUK group and so the circles came into their own, I think I will probably spend a bit more time figuring out how best to use it alongside Twitter.

Whoop!

I do enjoy a dose of “whooping” (I suspect you are pleased I didn’t add “cough” to that phrase) to raise the enthusiasm in the room. Don’t get me wrong I am not so keen on the use of the ‘whoop” in cinemas where it doesn’t have much place, but at the GTA the enthusiasm for the learning opportunities we can offer our classes was great. And when you unpick it, that is all it is, an enthusiastic public gesture of our delight for a potential future learning opportunity for our students. Jo Badge describes it as the GTA “philosophy” and in many ways it is important as it kept the energy up – you wonder what the event would be like without the wearing of our emotions on our sleeves. Huzzah!

Reflections from GTAUK participants

Reflections on google teacher academy UK 2012 #gtauk « DrBadgr by Jo Badge.

Learnbuzz reflections on the GTA from Steph Ladbrooke.

Google Teacher Academy: Reflection | Anseo.net from Simon Lewis.

Carry on Learning: GTAUK posts from Sheli Blackburn

The Future of the GTA in the UK

It has been about 5 or 6 years since I began to email Cristin Frodella from Google about bringing the GTA to the UK and it has been great to now see the second event conclude. However this leaves me somewhat pensive about the event over here, the model of organisation and how much more could be done. The bottom line is that I want more of this type of opportunity for UK teachers, not just a few places over the course of 2 years but more like 3 big, full blown academy events every year.

It doesn’t seem that much to ask for UK teachers, who are, in my opinion, one of the most innovative and inspiring communities of teachers in the world. This is what I am pushing for and will do what I can to help make it happen.

74 Interesting Ways to Use Google Forms in the Classroom

The Interesting Ways series of resources continue to grow as the community add ideas from the classroom. Below is one of the most popular with over 70 ideas shared by teachers for using Google Forms in a range of different ways.

Make sure that you explore nearly 40 other crowdsourced resource like the one above – you can see the full series of resources on the Interesting Ways page

A Sticking Plaster Mentality to Open Web Access in Schools

Just before Christmas Google announced the YouTube for Schools platform, which runs through a schools Google Apps for Edu account, allowing students to access selected content. In a week where the focus is on the changes of ICT curriculum I am concerned that the wider debate around open web access in schools will be once again lost.

This post is in part an effort to scrutinise Google’s YouTube for Schools more closely and to maintain and continue the important discussion on school web access, by bringing together some thoughts from around the web.

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Optophobia by Hani Amir
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Many schools will sign up to this flavour of YouTube because it quickly plasters over the crack of an unfiltered open web and means they don’t have to think about that.

An open YouTube allows teachers to use their own professional judgement about the type of content that a class will focus on and the ability to have the discussion about appropriate content, online behaviours and freely use whatever resources are appropriate to that class.

This “new” service, although it may well be more easily digested by school admins, means Google has become a further conduit of knowledge. A version of the web chosen for us – or in fact a team from YouTube Edu. This is literally a Filter Bubble in plain view! Eli Pariser explains in his book and TED Talk that due to an algorithmic filtering of the web we are seeing a version of the internet that is built from our preferences and previous interactions – the one the internet “thinks” you should see.

Schools using this will present a set of educational content on this platform decided by someone else and in my opinion are sidestepping the bigger issues we need to tackle. But this is a flawed model anyway, because at 3.30pm children will have access on the way home to an open web! We are sticking a plaster over the major issue of open content and how we must educate children and trust the professional teaching community on this issue. Summed up well by Liz Christensen a teacher from Nevada in the US who responded:

http://twitter.com/#!/grouchyteacher/status/150267763187908608

Theo Kuchel, an expert in the use of video in teaching and learning, wrote the first piece I read in response to the YouTube announcement

Teachers should be encouraged to address the issues raised by comments and how related videos algorithms work and evaluate their effectiveness. This is all part of developing digital and media literacies. Offering a solution based on ‘removing’ comments and related videos is pedagogically unsound.

Dan Stucke an Assistant Headteacher from Manchester in the UK reacted to Theo’s post:

I’ve often found it useful as a spontaneous relationship builder too, many times a conversation in class leads to a story from my childhood or similar, and many times Youtube brings some video context to the story.

David Rogers the Curriculum Leader for Geography at Priory School in Portsmouth further underlines the importance of this, video material that doesn’t neatly fall into the “educational” category but requires a context to be built around it to make it meaningful, inspiring and useful at the point of learning. In many case the context is a very personal, subjective thing – if teachers the world over decided only to use media, resources and learning materials labelled “educational” just imagine the opportunities that would have been missed. Eli Pariser explains that:

…the search for perfect relevance and the kind of serendipity that promotes creativity push in opposite directions…By definition ingenuity comes from the juxtaposition of ideas that are far apart…

David goes on to explain:

While I admire Google for trying, the only real people that should be making decisions on what is useful educational content is teachers. Teachers who understand their own educational context, the learning styles of young people and their classroom. I think that it’s the wrong argument to have, but admit that it is a start.

I agree with everything David has said in his post, right up to the last 7 words in the quote above. I can’t bring myself to think that this can be a start – because many schools will see this as the only way, it is not a good starting point for schools because they are, all too easily, sidestepping the broader discussion about filtered and open web access.

I would like to think that using this version of YouTube in schools will make teaching colleagues question why it is in place and broaden their understanding and appreciation for the filters we put in place, but I worry it will simply be swallowed as is. In my opinion Google have given them an easy way out. (In addition both Theo and David ably deal with the roundabout language Google use in their announcement too about the “new” service.) Alastair Creelman from Linnaeus University in Sweden closes his blog postabout it with a telling statement:

…somewhere along the line we still need to discuss issues like attention, distraction, source criticism and information retrieval so that they (stuents) can find the good resources for themselves despite the distractions. We need to be careful of the line between benevolent protection and censorship.

Not enough discussion or debate has taken place, both online and within schools, Ryan Bretag has recognised this too:

And I have to wonder, are these Marlin-like administrators at all concerned about their choice between YouTube, YouTube for Schools, or <gasp> neither? Are they engaging their leadership teams, their faculty, and their students in a broader dialogue about this?

Back in 2009 Ewan posted findings by research consultant Kim Farris-Berg from a US, South American and Australia study:

In 2007, [filtering] was high school students’ number one obstacle to using technology at their schools (53 percent). For middle school students, two obstacles tied for the greatest barrier (39 percent each): “there are rules against using technology at school” and “teachers limit technology use”. It’s likely that when students face obstacles to using technology at school, they also face obstacles to inquiry-based learning opportunities which can include online research, visualizations, and games.

 

If we compare that with the information from the 2010 Speak Up campaign in the US it is sobering to realise that students frustrations with filtering in schools not only remain the top problem in their mind but also that it is growing even more acute. As Audrey Watters points out:

When a similar survey was undertaken five years ago, students’ number one complaint was the speed of Internet access at school. Now, they point instead to school filters and firewalls. 71% of high school students and 62% of middle school students say that the most important thing their school could do to make it easier for them to use technology would be to allow them greater access to the websites they need.

An increase from 53 percent to 71 percent of frustrated high schools students does not indicate we are making progress with open access in schools. We certainly don’t seem to be listening to the students themselves.

I wanted to hear from teachers on this subject as although the posts above prove a useful starting point there simply is not enough debate about the open web and open access to resources like YouTube. There were some really interesting replies on Twitter that back up many of the points made above, so I thought I would share a selection of them below:

http://twitter.com/#!/1jh1/status/150311233491451904

http://twitter.com/#!/heyjudeonline/status/150313881548492800

http://twitter.com/#!/gsyoung/status/150297395517857792

http://twitter.com/#!/PPotter/status/150292599528357888

http://twitter.com/#!/andyhudson77/status/150288804887011328

http://twitter.com/#!/digitalmaverick/status/150287917712019456

http://twitter.com/#!/krivett1/status/150286598955741184

http://twitter.com/#!/surreallyno/status/150276643972329472

http://twitter.com/#!/Dowbiggin/status/150279860835713024

http://twitter.com/#!/bjornhg/status/150276059043069955

What encourages me most about the tweets I have shared above is the number of schools and teachers working with open access to the web in their schools. Primary, secondary and higher ed institutes just getting on with things, helping their students tread thoughtfully and carefully through their experiences online.

What is missing though is the fanfare and celebration of what these schools, teachers, parents and pupils have accomplished together – we conveniently do not hear enough of their stories, we don’t share enough of their expertise. I hope that can change.

The teachers at these schools are doing their job and it is an opporunity we should all have.

I was writing about this topic 2 years ago and much like the statistics above, sadly not much has changed:

At the end of school children will go home and use the website, open to the inappropriate content we block in school. Not only is YouTube exempt from my teaching, I am exempt from helping children better understand, process and find value amidst a mass of video content. I am exempt from demonstrating and educating the children in my class to appreciate the power of such an information source. Apparently that is a good thing.

In my opinion it comes down to some hard decisions. The longer, more protracted path of educating young primary school children in dealing with open content on the web (including YouTube) is too hard a path for some to consider. The easy route is to block it. 

Or in fact use an impoverished, diluted version.

The ICT Curriculum is set to change in England and I just hope that we don’t lose sight of the role a more open approach to web access can have on learning in our schools. After all the students are telling us straight:

We are taught how to save documents and search for simple information, but we are on the internet at home and do most of our homework on the computer so we know how to do that. So IT lessons are kind of boring and we all really want to say to the teachers that we already know what we’re being taught. I wish we could learn how to do graphics, how to make a game or how to use Facebook safely – then we’d feel like we were actually learning something useful. I want to be a dancer or an actress when I’m older, so I’d like to learn how to look up videos to help me with my acting.

Ellie Magee, 12, Rivington and Blackrod high school, Bolton, Lancashire

TEDx Talk: What we learned from 5 million books

I discovered the Google Ngram Viewer from this TED Talk by Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel who are both fellows at Harvard University and Visiting Faculty at Google. They created the tool to analyse the millions of books being digitised by Google to allow them to search for cultural trends.

Using the Ngram Viewer would certainly be an interesting data handling lesson for children!