The Second Worst Thing That Can Happen … failure, though painful, is better than frustrated longing. — Earl Denman
I give a lot of talks. One of my motivations is that it gives me a way to test ideas that I am working on. In a way, talks are the preliminary sketches for what I eventually write. In 2003 I tried out some of the material intended for this book. The talk was at a usability conference. I thought that it went pretty well, and this was reinforced by the audience reaction as well as the comments that I received afterward. That is, until the next day. Someone came up to me; after expressing how much he enjoyed the talk, he went on to tell me how lucky I was. Now, although I do consider myself quite lucky, I couldn’t help but ask why, in particular, he thought so. His response led me to the bleak realization that my talk had been a failure. What he said was, “You are lucky because you get to work on such great projects, and to think so far ahead into the future. In my job, I have to focus on my current project, so I can’t afford the luxury of going so far out.” What this said to me was that I had completely failed to communicate the relevance of what I was saying to his day-to-day activities. As interesting as my examples may have been, they were irrelevant to him, and therefore little better than entertainment. The good news is that the sketch performed its function—I learned something. And so I dedicate this section of this book to that audience, in the hope that it makes up for what I failed to deliver in the talk: namely, why it is important to look five years down the road, even when your immediate concern has to do with the next quarter or two. We are about to go through some examples of sketches, prototypes, and models. Some, perhaps even most of them, may appear to be kind of “far out” in concept or time. But I want to argue that, if anything, they are too conservative. Not only are they not too far out, but responsible design demands that you think that far into the future! It is not only critical that the designer understand this, but that he or she be able to explain this to management. Here is why. I assume that if you are reading this, you are in some way involved in the design or production of interactive technologies. In light of this, consider the following: The worst thing that can happen with a new product is that it is a failure. The second worst thing that can happen is that it is a huge success.
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