There were some interesting Netflix articles over the past week or so. First, Nathan McAlone writes that Netflix wants to ditch 5-star ratings:

The problem, [CPO Neil] Hunt tells Business Insider, is that people subconsciously try to be critics. When they rate a movie or show from one to five stars, they fall into trying to objectively assess the “quality,” instead of basing the stars on how much “enjoyment” they got out of it.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you had fun watching a crappy movie, but still gave it a two-star rating because you know it’s not a “good” film. That presents Netflix with a problem. The system thinks you hated the movie.

I think embarrassment plays a part in this as well. Even when ratings are private, we’re worried that word might get out. For example, I’d be happy if all my Netflix recommendations consist of “Movies similar to Battleship”, but I certainly don’t want any of you to know how much I liked that terrible movie.

Related to this, McAlone also wrote about Netflix’s most important metric:

That means that the most important economic metric for Netflix is how much a TV show or movie contributes to Netflix’s ability to sign up and retain customers.

The problem is that the current star rating system doesn’t give them that metric because it’s associated with “quality”, not “enjoyment”. So I might rate Out of Africa 5 stars because I objective know it’s a good movie, but if Netflix starts recommending “Boring movies with Meryl Streep” to me, I’m out of there.

Netflix has a very difficult product design challenge ahead of them. They have to change an established user mental model (“stars=quality”) to something different (“tell us what you enjoy watching”) that will help them provide a better and more compelling service.

This is an interesting story on the topic of algorithmic empathy1. In Hospitals Employ Email ‘Empathy’ To Help Doctors And Patients Keep In Touch Barbara Feder Ostrov discusses a program that sends patients automated emails to ask them how they’re doing:

Doctors can send daily emails with information timed to milestones in surgery prep and recovery and ask patients or caregivers for feedback on specific issues patients may face during recovery.

The doctors may write their own email scripts, as Newport Orthopedics’ physicians did, or use the company’s suggested content. An online dashboard helps doctors and administrators keep track of which patients are doing well and who might need more follow-up care. Patients can also communicate with office staff about medications and office visits. Their responses to daily emails can trigger a call from the doctor’s office.

A patient might see this message: “How are you? Let me know so I can make sure you’re okay. I have four questions for you today.”

The program has had some promising results, but I’d be interested to know if patients are aware that the messages are automated. To put it another way, is it ethical for doctors to send automated, health-related messages that look like they’re individually crafted?

1. See Personal AI assistants: the battle and the war. ↩

Jeremy Keith writes about the onboarding process of the site The Session in his post Words of welcome. He shows a series of screen shots of simple messages that teaches users how to be good citizens on the site. Keith closes with this:

No intricate JavaScript; no smooth animations; just some words on a screen encouraging a human connection.

Design words to live by.

Katie Notopoulos writes about an extremely annoying marketing trend in Guilt And Shame As A UI Design Element—opt-out messages that make you feel bad about opting out:

The worst shame offender of all, however, is quickly becoming the mailing list opt-out guilt trip. When visiting a website, a pop-up implores you to sign up for their fantastic mailing list. The only way to get rid of this list is to click on the fine print at the bottom. But too often, this doesn’t merely say “Opt out” or “No thanks.”

No. It forces you to click a statement acknowledging you are a terrible, deplorable, disgusting human being.

It is not just enough that you don’t want to subscribe to the mailing list about political news. You must admit that “no, I DON’T care about being well-informed and reading great journalism.”

Ryan Singer shares some tips about prototyping tradeoffs in The Fidelity Curve: How to weigh the costs and benefits of creating UI mockups:

The purpose of making sketches and mockups before coding is to gain confidence in what we plan to do. I’m trying to remove risk from the decision to build something by somehow “previewing” it in a cheaper form. There’s a trade-off here. The higher the fidelity of the mockup, the more confidence it gives me. But the longer it takes to create that mockup, the more time I’ve wasted on an intermediate step before building the real thing.

I like to look at that trade-off economically. Each method reduces risk by letting me preview the outcome at lower fidelity, at the cost of time spent on it. The cost/benefit of each type of mockup is going to vary depending on the fidelity of the simulation and the work involved in building the real thing.

He goes on to provide some solid guidelines for when to go with paper & pencil vs. interactive or higher fidelity mock-ups.

Dominic Basulto wrote an excellent summary of a recent McGraw Hill Financial Global Institute report called What the world’s best cities will look like in 2030. The main point the report makes is that people in cities are aging, and we’re not really paying attention to that. There are, however, several things we can do to make sure that older people can live comfortably in our cities:

First, the city of the future should have the infrastructure and transportation links to address the needs of citizens of all generations. Second, each city should build new housing options to enable older citizens to “age in place.” Thirdly, each city should include access to community health programs with innovative medical technology for seniors. And finally, the city of the future should have plenty of opportunities for continuing work, education, arts and recreation for all ages.

This reminds me of an attempted joke I made the other day about the font size in Facebook Messenger1:

You’ll get old too, young designer. And when you can’t read your own product any more I’ll laugh so hard my teeth with fall out.

— Rian Van Der Merwe (@RianVDM) August 31, 2015

From cities to software, the evidence is all around us that if there’s one thing we desperately need to build more inclusive products, it’s a more diverse workforce. It’s very hard for us to design for people and situations that we have no experience with. We need to make sure our workplaces are more diverse, and then we need to go out and understand our users.

1. I’m ridiculously embarrassed about that typo. ↩

Daniel Zacarias has some tips for How to Deal with “Sinatra” Stakeholders—those people (usually HiPPOs1) who only want to design and build things their way. At the end he makes an important point:

These stakeholder attitudes don’t come out of the blue or from malfeasance. They result from misalignment and even when you can’t change your entire organization, you can definitely affect change around your product.

This is something I constantly have to remind myself about. If someone isn’t buying into our vision or “getting” the design, it’s not their fault. It’s ours. It is our responsibility to bring people along on the journey. We can’t blame them if they come into a project context-less and then ask difficult questions.

1. Highest Paid Person’s Opinion ↩

Melissa Perri in Changing the Conversation about Product Management vs. UX:

Product Management with no User Experience Design creates functional products that don’t make users excited. User Experience Design with no Product Management produces delightful products that don’t become businesses.

I have a few quibbles with this article (including the idea that the role of UX is to make users excited…), but I like this quote because it ties in with a common theme I write about: the importance of combining both user needs with business goals to create successful products.

The Transportation Research Board (TSB) recently published a 100-page PDF called Guidebook for Airport Terminal Restroom Planning and Design. If I know anything about the readers of this site, it’s that this is the kind of stuff we live for. Service design for airport toilets? Sign us up!

Ian Bogost provides a handy summary of this delightful document in The Airport Restroom of the Future:

The TSB report ends with an appendix on the “Airport Restroom of the Future.” After a surprisingly detailed history of public toilets, the TSB concludes that gender-neutral restrooms would offer travelers the most relief. Not only would they better address evolving gender identity norms, but they would also reduce congestion, maintenance, and accessibility by foregoing the barriers that help create the constriction of today’s restrooms. The TSB’s mockup puts individual sink basins in stalls to avoid flow to a common sink area, and adds a spacious waiting area flanked by two “art vitrines.”

I doubt airports care much about this, but it’s at least nice to see the TSB investing in this kind of service design research.