functions vs. tasks and a product designer's quest for relevance

I’m on the market for a new laptop. It’s long overdue – I’ve put this off for nearly a year, during which I’ve had ample time to read every tech blogger’s opinion on Core 2 Duo vs. Arrandale, how much RAM I’ll need in two years, and why the iPad is the greatest thing since Italian gelato. And the more opinions I read, the less relevant they become.

 (image courtesy of...)

When I was in college, relevance meant recreational web surfing, constant music playback without losing power, elaborate lab reports and poster presentations, coding in MatLab, and lots and lots of email. Sufficient RAM, a decent processor, and something that could handle the stresses of four and a half years of engineering school with its sanity intact.

Fast forward to my life now. Relevance has taken on a whole new meaning, and the ways in which I create and consume are vastly different. Important now - email on my phone, web-based research and news, networking through LinkedIn and occasionally Facebook, syncing my Nike+ runs without much hassle, and carrying a laptop that doesn't weigh enough to leave red marks on my shoulder as I run through the airport. Sufficient RAM, a decent processor, and something that can handle the stresses of work-life balance (or in my case, work-life overdrive) for years to come.

The same features that were relevant then are relevant now, but the embodiment of those things is completely different. My custom-built desktop from 2004 is still humming along with Photoshop, HD video, and my music and photo collection. My professional Dell laptop can run several browser windows, SolidWorks, Outlook, and Pandion at the same time for hours. My iPhone takes care of my push email and quick Wikipedia checks.

My year of waiting has corresponded with a year of work experience in product development, and part of what I’ve learned is that there’s a big difference between tasks and functions. Functions are things that the device can do. Tasks are things that a user does with a device. It may seem trivial, but as any product designer worth their salt will tell you, those two concepts can be vastly different. My computer needs to function with iTunes, MS Office, Picasa, and a browser. My tasks, though, are doing research while sitting in airports, composing email from my back porch, and sharing blog posts, pictures, and video calls from hotel rooms across the world. Any computer on the market today would perform my needed functions. But for my computer to be relevant to my life, I need a very portable, writing-friendly laptop that plays nice with my iPhone.

My year-long quest to find the best computer was less about the laptop and more about me. Relevance isn’t interchangeable from person to person. Relevance isn’t detailed for you on someone else’s blog. And relevance doesn’t come from your best friend’s opinion – even if your best friend is a respected technologist and web dev (sorry Shan, it’ll likely be a Mac). Finding a computer that performs relevant functions is far less important than finding a computer that allows me to perform relevant tasks.

culture, design, and why it's important that i'm an immigrant

I'm a first-generation immigrant. I was born in Jamshedpur, India, and moved to the United States at the tender age of five. So what?, you might say. 5 years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things, and plus, I grew up mostly American anyway. And maybe that's true. Maybe it makes little to no difference that I was born elsewhere, that I became a naturalized citizen only into adulthood.

photo taken in a village on the road to Agra (personal photo... please do not reproduce without permission)

But for those of you who weren't born in this country, you must understand what I mean when I say I've lived my adult life with my feet straddling two cultures. A good friend recently reminded me that immigrants, and especially those that emigrate from their native land after a coming-of-age, will forever remember their cultural identity as their homeland was when they left, not as it continuously evolves and adapts to modern ideals. My dad still recalls to me how things are done in the India he knows, turning a blind eye to the fact that it is no longer the India that has come to be. One of my favorite books is The Namesake, which tells the story of an Indian family trying to bridge their cultural gaps (watch the trailer for the movie here, it's amazing).

I bring this up for two reasons: first, as a child and teenager I struggled to find room for each of my cultural identities, and only in adulthood have I learned that adopting pieces of one culture does not mean you've forgotten all of the other. I can be wholly Indian without losing the parts of me that are wholly American, and vice versa. Secondly, to understand your cultural footprint is to understand how you interact with people, places, and things. Spaces, products, and interactions are typically designed for the prevailing culture of where they are placed, and oftentimes are not fully interchangeable without modification (tip: Kyle). To know this and utilize this is immensely powerful as a designer.

But to be able to utilize your cultural identity, you have to understand it, to come to terms with it, to be able to see it with eyes wide open. Which, in my 23 years, has not proven to be easy.

playing with falsehood and maintaining a right to truth

Two great thoughts, from two of my favorite books:

"You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds." - Dag Hammarskjold, as written in Covey's Seven Habits

And...

"Perhaps it is true that 'from the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made'. But do we need to be straight to point upwards? Do we need to be perfect to be good?" - Jonathan Sacks, in To Heal A Fractured World

Ethics is not about the truths we know; it's about the truths we live. We live lives that are (generally) closer to the second statement than the first. Does exploring themes of falsehood and cruelty change our responses and dull our thoughts? Are we justified in thinking the second statement true, or is that our way of vindicating our own behavior?

Good questions, heavy thoughts, no answers. Discuss amongst yourselves.

i never thought i'd write an abortion post

  Oklahoma Senate overrides governor's vetoes to pass abortion laws

I’m going to go ahead and throw this out there: Oklahoma just passed two new abortion-related pieces of legislation. Irrespective of my own personal views on abortion (which, unlike several bloggers that I respect, I’m not keen on exploring or expressing on the internet, and nor do I think I can do with the candor and rawness that someone who has experienced it can), there is a piece of this article that I can’t ignore:

The other measure approved by legislators Tuesday prohibits pregnant women and their families from seeking legal damages if physicians "knowingly and negligently" withhold key information or provide inaccurate information about their pregnancies.

Maybe this is just CNN talking. Maybe, hopefully, I pray that this is just media spin. Because otherwise, it’s absolutely ridiculous. In what field, even politics, is it acceptable to “knowingly and negligently” withhold information from your customers or clients? The government’s up in arms at investment banks for allegedly doing the same thing – and that’s just an allegation. Imagine if an engineer withheld information about a bridge that he or she designed. Or that a consumer products company withheld information about the ingredients in their food. Or even when a politician withholds information about their extramarital affairs (which doesn’t affect the lives and livelihoods of their constituents)?

And yet the government wants to protect doctors who do that very thing.

By virtue of what I do, I know plenty of doctors (and aspiring doctors) who personally don’t believe in or perform abortions. But I know of none of them who are comfortable lying to their patients to ensure that their own views are followed. What a gross violation of the doctor-patient relationship.

The stakes aren’t small here. These are people’s lives we’re talking about.