Day 7 - Google and a Drive Up Highway 1 into San Francisco

Well today I went to visit Google. Well is was great I was meet in the foyer and taken for a guided tour of Google. Everywhere you went there was food and drinks and coffee and as much as you want. They had Gyms, Lap Pools, someone pounding a large rubber tier with a sledge hammer. Must have been a difficult customer he had been dealing with. The place was so laid back, but then you look into the offices and everyone is beavering away at their work and working with each other. The campus stretches for quite a number of blocks. People riding around on Google Bikes painted in the Google colours.


We then headed to the Android area where they have the statues for each of the Android versions . That was cool.

Android Robot

Ginger Bread, Ice Cream Sandwich, Honey Comb, 

Éclair

After the tour I then went to one of the cafeterias where we meet up with a number of UX developers. Over our lunch we talked about a number of topics. The people I was talking to were from two areas of Google. Each talking about their experience and their involvement with the use of UX within Google. We spoke about my experience to date and the conversations that I had been having with a number of different people and companies. It was interested to discuss and speculate on some of my findings. 


It was highlighted that Google has now produced and published a graphic design standards. I am waiting to obtain a copy and have a read. 


After this I then popped home and then took a drive over the hill and up Highway 1 into San Francisco.

Forest in the Hills

Parked to take photos

Coast along Highway 1

New Tunnel for Coast Road

Highway 1

Sea Birds

Signing off - 10:00pm - May 17th

Day 2 - Sight seeing around San Francisco

Today a friend of mine picked me up at the place I am staying and took me sight seeing. First up we went flying in a 4 seat Cessna. We took off from Palo Alto airport and flew north for about an hour. We did a landing and then took off again and headed back via Oak Field where we did a touch down and take off.

Jack and I

As we flew we went over an area settling ponds. From the air the ponds were qutie colourful. The area before the ponds were quite interesting as well.

Settelling area

Setteling Ponds

After that we flew past the international airport which look totally differnt from the air. As we were heading towards the International Airport we flew over the Oracle Office where I will be visiting Monday afternoon.

Oracle

San Francisco International Airport. Love the road system here, look a bit like spaggetti but the traffic flows very well.

San Francisco International Airport

After that we then came up on the city, The clouds were rolling in from the sea and was about to cover the city. Looked really cool as it came over the hills like water in slow motion.

Clouds rolling in over the hills

Was hoping to see the Golden Gate but the cloud had come in can covered it. I got a shot with just one of the main struts just pearcing the cloud.

The Golden Gate Bridge, look close and you can just see a little in the clouds

As we flew over the city I got a picture of the town hall. Later we drove into town and I got a picture from the ground.

City Hall from the Air

City Hall from the Ground

We then drove through part of the city to a look out point to see the Golden Gate but alas the clouds were still there. So tomorrow we will try again.

The Castro Area

The Thinker

Some of the houses near the city

Again you really need to imagine the Golden Gate in the clouds. :)

The clouds still rolling in on the way home. In Melbourne we use to have four seasons to a day. In San Francisco you just drive to different suburbs. Unless you saw it yourself you would not believe it. I was a glorious summer day, we drive into to another suburb and were before people were in T-Shirts and shorts, the other suburbs they were in Winter Jackets and scarfs.

Clouds rolliing in over the hills

We will see what tomorrow holds but it was a fantastic day for an introduction to San Francisco.

Signing Off, 00:20am Sunday 13th May

Understanding Your Research Goal, Before Doing Your Research.

226 days, 13 hours, 26 minutes and 31 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

I have been listening to several HBR (Harvard Business Review) Idea Cast and it has raised many ideas. One of the main themes that have been coming out of several the Podcasts was that knowing the objective you are looking to achieve in what you do. As you may have guested this is the areas I am recording my journey in my research overseas for my Churchill Research Project.

The information I placed in my application for the 2011 Churchill Fellowship was:

"New Frontiers in Technology for Child Protection

This project will explore how breakthroughs in mobile technology can help social workers in the field, and providing an improved child protection service. It will examine how to remove usability barriers imposed by the complexity of unwieldy applications and devices. It will try to remove, or moderate, the impersonal use of technology in meetings, with clients, where a high degree of empathy and emotional intelligence are needed. Working with experts in child protection this project will seek ways to record and process information captured in the field using a new generation of smart devices and innovative software applications. Key goals will be in a drop in staff workload, improved access to information for colleagues, and a rich interaction with clients strengthened by the removal of technology barriers. A decreased in computer training can be achieved due to better understanding of usability and human interfaces into these devices. This will allow staff more time to focus on relationships with clients."

During my time since being awarded the scholarship I have been thinking more about my topic in this research. Working to better understand what it is I hope to communicate in my final paper.  Trying to better understand how my trip better arm me with the necessary information to address my topic. But to understand what I will need, I need to better explain exactly what I am trying to achieve. In other words my objectives and why I am going where I am going as well as why am I meeting the companies and people that I have identified so far.

I am looking to address my topic from four aspects. They are:

1.    Technology - The actual device be it a tablet, laptop, ultra- laptop and desktop computer

2.    Software – The design of the software and the usability aspects of that software

3.    Business – How do we re-engage business to usability? To be involved in the discussion before the product or services is developed

4.    Usability – In general how do we go about addressing usability both in design of specific technology and then the interfaces into the systems that are used on this technology?

To address these questions I am working to meet with several different people, companies and organisations involved in technologies. In meeting with these organisations I am hoping to better understand the questions that need to be asked and considered where building, developing and using technology. Other organisations I hope to meet and talk with are organisations which use technology and understanding how they have addressed these questions and do they have some of the answers.

My first stop will be San Francisco (SF) where I have made contact with Stanford University where I will be meeting Professor Terry Winograd. He is a professor of computer science and is involved with the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Department. He has invited me to visit and to be involved in any of the workshops that might be running at that time. Here I hope to find out about the study of human computer interaction and what is studied.

While in SF I am also arranging to meet representations at Cisco, Facebook, Google and Apple. But as it still is sometime before I head off I am waiting to make contact early in the New Year. I am fortunate to have a close friend, Jack & Lucy who now lives in SF and works for Cisco.

Following SF I then head to Seattle to meet with Microsoft. I am hoping to see their futures laboratories but this is to be confirmed. I have made contact with the Child Protection Agency in Seattle but still waiting on a response. I will follow this up in the New Year. From Seattle I then head to Austin Texas where I will be visiting Motion Computing a manufacturer of tablet computers. Looking at their work with tablets and how they go about design their product. While in Austin I am hoping to catch up with the Department for Child Protection who did a case study on their use of tablet computers in the field. And finally I have received confirmation from Craig Tomlin to meet and discuss his work in Usability. I came across Craig on a blog discussing his views about usability and it was a re-buttle to a response to his article from Charles Mauro of Mauro New Media. I then head to New York to actually me up with Charles.

In New York I have confirmed meetings with Charles Mauro, Adam Greenfield of urbanscale LLC | Design. Adam I came across in a book he wrote called "Everyware" - The dawning age of ubiquitous computing. After reading this book I then started to research Adam and found him in New York and approached him to see if he would meet to discuss some of his idea. He has agreed and is another of my interviews. I have also arrange meetings with the Chief Software Architect of Epicenter Consulting. As well as a number of other contact if I get the time. One of the other locations I am hoping to visit is the IBM futures laboratories just outside of NY but this is still being worked on.

I then head off to Boston to visit MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This has been one of the locations I have dreamt about and the opportunity presented itself. I have made contact with a professor involved in HCI and Usability and will be meeting. I am still trying to find a contact at Harvard to see if I could discuss the business angle with this research project. From Boston I then head to London, UK.

In London I am still working on my contacts. Child Protection in the UK comes under Health but is managed in the shires and Burroughs. I am fortunate in that I have a contact in the Department here in WA who has worked in the UK in the area and working on a contact there. From London I then head to Heidelberg to visit SAP.

SAP recently purchased a company called Sybase and they have a technology which is used in the production and deployment of mobile solutions. At this point in time I don't have much more information. I will be flying into Frankfurt and then taking a train to Heidelberg. From Heidelberg I then catch a train to Salzburg.

In Salzburg I will be visiting  the university of Salzburg and their HCI department. Again I have made contact with one of the professors their and this discussion is to be further developed. I am there as with most places for a week so I am leaving this opportunity open to see what I can achieve. From Salzburg I then catch a train to Vienna.

In Vienna I will be visiting C.U.R.E. the Centre for Usability Research and Engineering. I have has some initial discussions with one of the staff at this centre and this will get further developed early next year. Finally after eights weeks I then head to Singapore via London.

Singapore is 4-5hrs from Perth and will be where I was going to take a break. But I just can't help myself and have already found a connection there. I have made contact with MicroUsability one of the largest usability organisations in the world which is based out of Mumbai. Again I have a confirmed contact and will be corresponding in the New Year to fix dates and times. 

When I arrive in Singapore I will be meeting up with my wife after the initial 8 week for a bit of a break. Before heading back to Perth and work on the 16th July after leaving on the 11th May I would have travelled over 29,000 miles and meet many different people and hopefully be in a better position of understanding to be able to offer some insights into better designs for usability aspect in the area of Child Protection.

Stay tuned for more information as it come to hand. 

First Location after Leaving Australia - 11th / 19th May 2012

288 days, 4 hours, 29 minutes and 37 seconds

**UPDATE: Due to some further contacts I have decided to extend the SF stay. 11th - 19th instead of 11-16th May. Responses from Stanford and other opportunities show that I can get far more for SF.




The first stop is San Francisco (SF). Flying East is really great after 14-16 hours of flying I arrive an hour after I have left on the same day. So this will be a very long day to kick of this trip. While I am in SF there are a number of things I hope to achieve. Dependent on the time and day I arrive I will have a couple of days to acclimatise and prepare for my visits.

I would like to see some of the sites of SF, these are the classic locations with Alcatraz, the trams, Golden Gate and finally the skyline over the city. Being a hobbiest photographer I would love to get some good photos. 

Main Reason for Being in San Francisco

The main reason for picking SF was Silicon Valley and seeing some of the major companies that have a great influence on what we use our technology for and how we use it. These are Apple, Google and Facebook. I am looking to meet with representatives from these companies and to hopefully get a better understanding of how they address usability and interface design or what is referred to as User Experience (UX).

Apple, I believe has achieved a remarkable feat with making a piece of technology in to something we consume. The work that has been done with the iPad has been increadable feet of both marketing and functionality. I use the iPad as an example with respect that people will talk more about what they do with the iPad rather than the technology. You will see and hear people talk about their pictures or videos, with pride they just present the iPad with the images and talk about the images and their content. Its not about the technology and the CPU and how much memory the device has, but more of what and how they interact with that technology. So I would like to find out a little more on how and what goes into that thought process. At the moment still trying to get in to see them.

Google has achieve a lot with how we find information and our interactions in carrying out that task. Google the work itself has become an adjective with in our language. Don't quote me on it as grammar is not my forte, but people use it within conversation "have you googled that yet?". 

The other area I am interested in finding out more about is their work in the Android area. I have had a smart phone for a number of years and have seen and used this OS from and early stage. I now have an Android tablet and while I was on the earlier versions of Android I considered it a geek device. I installed thing and uninstalled and experimented but it was not really a consumable device. Since I have installed Android Honey Comb the story has changed. It is now becoming a very functional device. The material I have seen for what is coming in Android 4 or "Ice Cream Sandwich" are very exciting. So having the opportunity to see what is happening in this area will be great. Still working on this contact.

Facebook, a friend of mine suggested this and at first I was not sure but the more I thought about it the more I could see the value. Facebook has become the social space where everyone around the world is coming together I now see businesses on TV with ads that include Facebook references. So understanding their views on social interaction and working with their software. What work is done on the understanding of the user and their experience. At time I have read damming articles talking about the lack of this as a consideration. Having an better insight into their processes would be good.


Stanford University - this is somewhere I would have loved to had the opportunity to study and learn. This is just a small way of achieving this and getting some insights into this specialty area of HCI (Human Computer Interface/Interaction, not use yet on the 'I'). In some information that I received from a contact in New York the field of HCI and usability has been around since the end of the Second World War. It is a specialise area of study and research and I will hopefully be catching up with Charles Mauro of Mauro New Media in New York to discuss further into my trip.


I have started to send out the emails to Stanford University to see if I could catch up with the HCI department or people working and studying in this area. As I gain appointments I will update my blog as to where and whom I will be catching up with. This blog will become my record of the trip and help towards the writing of my paper.


So this leg of the trip is a short leg and I hope to cover and see all of these organisation and contacts in 5 days I am there. My next location will be Seattle and Microsoft.