Light Switch Fail

I spotted this in the hallway at work. You can't make these things up.

Got Punctuation?

Like many, I delight in funny signs. These are often the result of misspellings or lack of punctuation. This example falls in the latter category, and was first spotted and admired by Paul. It is a handwritten sign on the second floor door for the handicapped elevator in the Colonial Inn in Edgartown, MA:

Do Not Slam Door Shut Gently

That sign is now three or four years old, and we delight in reading it literally every year: "Do not slam door shut gently." OK, we think, we will slam the door shut forcefully!

We by no means want to disparage the kind folks who run the Colonial Inn, for they are warm and wonderful and we go back there every year because they treat us so well. But we love the lack of punctuation on that little sign.

Zooming back a little, we can see a larger design issue:

Notice the tennis ball on the string tether? No, that's not for some Golden Retriever's amusement. That's a door modification suggested by Paul when they first installed the handicapped elevator. See, if you are in a wheelchair and you need to open that door and get yourself into the elevator, the task is nearly impossible. You have to reach, pull the door, and back up all in a sequence that is easy for us able bodied people to not even think about. Paul's brilliant door modification allows him to pull the door open via the tennis ball, with his wheelchair already back out of the way of the opening door. Sorta makes me wonder if the elevator manufacturer did much user research.

I swear there is a consulting business to be had in handicapped access design in the hospitality industry. Traveling with Paul I've learned some of the most overlooked but important design points, like having clothes hanger rods in closets low enough for wheelchair access. Same with shower controls and shower heads. And light switch and phone access within easy reach of a handicapped person in bed, as they might not be able to reach over to the night stand like most of us can. All of these things are often overlooked in hotel room design for the handicapped. It's not just about adding a ramp and a wide door to the bathroom. I've learned all this only through Paul.

Cisco TelePresence!

I had my first encounter with a Cisco TelePresence video conferencing system yesterday. Holy cow, the future of video conferencing is here, right now.

If you have been around any number of large U.S. corporations in the past 10 years or so, you have likely run into a number of largely unused video conferencing systems. I've seen a variety of the old PictureTel systems (like this one)in three different companies, and from what I have seen they tend to sit silent and unused in the corner of conference rooms, taking up space and gathering dust. The user experience of those systems was just horrible. The user interface always seemed confusing. The video lag disconcerting. And, frankly, viewing a whole table full of people on a 26-inch television screen really wasn't "just like being there." It was a horrible experience, and those systems didn't add much of value over just the phone connection.

To be fair to PictureTel, they have been acquired by Polycom, and I'm sure they must have really nice, high end video conferencing too. But my experience was with the Cisco system. The system I used looks exactly like this:

That photo really doesn't even do it justice. The whole experience has "wow" written all over it. I'd love to know who was in charge of the overall experience design, because they did an outstanding job.

The primary user interface is the phone you see on the table. Turning the entire system on is as simple as two touches on the touch screen - one touch to open the phone directory, and a second to dial the remote location. When you dial... ring, and then *bam*, it's on. The video screens are turned on, the cameras are turned on, the audio is on. It's beautiful.

What is so compelling is the people "across the table" from you are life size. There's something just so compelling about that. And the detail is amazing - that's what high def gets you. And absolutely no video lag. And, of course, perfectly color balanced cameras. It all adds up.

The audio, too, is just so well done. In the photo you can see the microphones, which are embedded into the table top - no moving them around, no messy wires. The speakers are embedded in the area below the video monitors, and there are three speakers - one below each monitor. When the guy on the right side is speaking, you hear his voice from the right speaker. Likewise, the woman on the left is heard from the left speaker, and those in the center from the center speaker. The directional audio cue is really effective.

There are a ton of other little details in the design. Like how the physical table in the room is actually a full oval, and the monitors are butted up against it. This helps create a nearly seamless visual flow from the physical table to the video table. It's a beautiful touch that shows an attention to design detail.

You can see the shared presentation area in the picture above too - look below the center video monitor and you can see a slide being projected (ah, they should have had the laptop showing that slide too, but what do you want for a marketing photo?). Putting the presentation area down there was a brilliant thought. Sure, looks obvious after the fact, but I can imagine that it wasn't easy to stumble upon that solution.

I applaud whoever was responsible for the design. They paid attention to experience, and thought about the details. Nicely done.

NH UPA March Meeting this Wednesday

The NH UPA March meeting is this coming Wednesday night, March 26. Looks like a great topic. It is open to the public, but you gotta RSVP to info@nhupa in advance. See you there?

Topic: Expanding User-Centered Design in the 21st Century or Why Design Thinking is the Next Big Thing.

Speaker: Sarah Bloomer, Sarah Bloomer & Co.

When:
Wednesday, March 26th
Refreshments & Networking: 6-7:00PM
Meeting: 7:00PM – 8ish

Where:
Liberty Mutual
150 Liberty Way
Dover, NH 03820

Abstract:
What is design thinking? Why is it important? What does design thinking mean to the field of user centered design?

Take a closer look: it seems design thinking heavily leverages user-centered design...

Stanford University recently set up a new Institute of Design (the d.school), founded by, amongst others, David Kelley and Terry Winograd, big names in interaction design. Its website boldly states "we believe design thinking is a catalyst for innovation and bringing new things into the world."

Business Week Online includes a section on Innovation, where design is a major theme. And in his book A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink says that the new MBA is the MFA. He claims we are moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. And people with design thinking will lead the way.

This talk is an overview of how design thinking is finding its place in companies worldwide, and how user-centered design is being applied across many fields, from organizational design to product design.

Buzzword - Worth the Buzz

Last night I saw Rick Treitman and Robby Shaver talk about Buzzword at the monthly BostonCHI meeting.

It is usually difficult to really "wow" a BostonCHI type of audience. Not impossible, but difficult. But with YAWP (Yet Another Word Processor)? I mean come on, a word processor? We are supposed to get excited over a word processor? Are you serious?

Yes. Serious. These guys did it. Frankly, Rick had me sold very early in his part of the talk, when he said:

"If you are going to build something new, build it beautiful."

(Yay, a new quote to add to my list of favorite design quotes!)

And that very much was the theme of everything they talked about and showed us all night long. Beauty and elegance. Design that resonates. (Note to self: go re-read Gelernter's Machine Beauty.)

Buzzword is a Flash-based word processor that works inside a browser. It has some collaboration features built in, but I think what resonated more with many of us in the audience is that it was designed with a fresh look at the solution space, and with an elegance that isn't often seen today. An Apple-like elegance, you might say.

I was quite interested in what I could glean about Robby's design process, as his role was (is) that of the design lead. No surprise to me, his is a design process rooted in creating interactive artifacts (wanna call them prototypes?). He made an interesting comment about steering away from wire frames, and instead creating pixel-fidelity interactions. Hmmmm, pair that up with the Business Week Tech Beat post last week about Apple's design process and "pixel perfect mockups." I see a design tension here between fast (sketching) and fidelity that I find myself mulling over and over. Can it be that Robby just glossed over the phase where he considers ten ideas to concentrate finally on one or two?

They talked about creating an Adobe AIR version of Buzzword. That, I think, could be a killer app in the word processing space, and I'll be watching for it. In the meantime, check out Buzzword. And if you get a chance to see Rick or Robby talk, don't pass it up.

Five Essays for Interaction Designers

This is a warm up exercise for an updating of my somewhat out-of-date "top five books" list. These are my top five favorite essays about software design. Well, OK, to be accurate there are three essays and two interviews. The good news is that the three pieces from Winograd's Bringing Design to Software can all be read on the hci.stanford.edu Web site (sans figures though). For the others, you'll have to buy the books. Heck you ought to buy Bringing Design to Software anyway.

Here we go. Five essays for interaction designers...to inform, to inspire.

"A Software Design Manifesto", Mitch Kapor. In Bringing Design to Software (Winograd, 1996). This essay was first given as a talk at Esther Dyson's PC Forum in 1990, and it first appeared in print in Dr. Dobbs Journal in 1991. Kapor's essay represents a call to arms for a software design profession, and draws a strong parallel between software design and architecture.

"The Right Way to Think About Software Design", Theodor Holm Nelson. In The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design (Laurel, 1990). Ted Nelson is an early pioneer in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and information technology. He is credited with coining the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in the 1960s, and along with Andries "Andy" van Dam he created the first hypertext system at Brown in the late 60s. Nelson's essay draws an analogy between software design and movie-making; interactivity is a key concept in both.

"The Designer's Stance", an interview with David Kelley by Bradley Hartfield. In Bringing Design to Software (Winograd, 1996). David Kelley is the founder of IDEO, which is arguably the world's premier design firm. This interview is a nice short introduction to Kelley's ideas, and should whet any designer's appetite for reading The Art of Innovation, written by David's brother Tom Kelley (IDEO's general manager).

"Cultures of Prototyping", Michael Schrage. In Bringing Design to Software (Winograd, 1996). Schrage is a well known consultant, writer, and researcher at the MIT Media Lab. This essay discusses the importance of prototyping to creativity and innovation, and draws on examples from the automotive and consumer electronics industries. This essay plays well with my opinion that software design needs to be much more like industrial design, and that we place far too much emphasis on "specs" as the primary deliverable of product designers, rather than multiple methods of articulating design and vision.

"Designing the PalmPilot: A Conversation with Rob Haitani", an interview with Rob Haitani by Eric Bergman. In Information Appliances and Beyond (Bergman, 2000). Rob Haitani was the Product Manager for the original PalmPilot, and is widely credited with being in charge of the design of the PalmOS user interface. As a Palm user from the very first PalmPilot, I'm an unabashed PalmOS fan. This interview, the longest reading so far at 20 pages, is a fascinating look at the design process and design for the small screen.

Things That Are Important

"Things That Are Important" is a list of 5 principles that I have carried around in my Palm Pilot/Treo/Blackberry since the day in 1997 when they seemed to flow from my thoughts effortlessly. At least I think it was in 1997. I was about to transition from being an individual contributor to being a manager at Sun Microsystems, and I found myself thinking about my career, about what I thought was important, and how I wanted to manage my group. I like to believe that I have guided my career by these principles, and that I manage by them. Everyone who reports to me gets to hear them at least once.

1. Teamwork. This is about working for the good of the team, and thinking about the team. I use the term "team" in reference to all levels of the team - your local group, your larger organization, your division, all the way up to your corporation. All too often I have seen individuals act in their own self interests, rather than the interests of their group. Or groups act over the interests of their larger organizations or even their entire corporation. For people in my team, I expect them to watch each others' backs. This might be as simple as sharing information or giving a team member a "heads up" about something. Or it might be seeing a need and helping out. As for managers, we should always be aware of how our words and actions either foster or destroy a sense of team, both within our groups and among different groups.

2. Leverage. This is about making use of your work beyond the immediate purpose. Leverage is about making your organization more efficient. This is often played out in terms of taking lessons learned and sharing them with others, so that they don't have to learn what you already know the hard way. Sharing templates and tools and techniques that you have developed is another way of applying leverage to your work. One might call this just an aspect of teamwork, but I find it unique enough to deserve a place on my list.

3. Technical excellence. I am simply blown away, day in and day out, by the technical excellence displayed by the engineers with whom I work. As design professionals, it is important to also demonstrate a level of technical excellence and competence. There are two aspects of this. The first aspect is a level of technical competence regarding the software or device architecture upon which we are designing. This does not mean knowing the architecture as well as the engineers, but it does mean knowing enough to be an effective designer. You must have an understanding of what is possible, of what is difficult, of what is impossible. Without some level of technical competence, you will almost surely fail to establish a meaningful and productive relationship with your engineering counterparts. The second aspect is a level of technical excellence with respect to the domain for which you are designing. It doesn't matter whether you are designing, say, a programmer productivity tool, a financial application, a network or system management application, a social networking application, or a civil engineering application. You simply cannot be an effective designer without some level of technical competence in the application's "domain space."

4. Attention to presentation and detail in everything we produce. We are design professionals, and everything we produce should speak to that. This does not mean spending an infinite amount of time on an infinite amount of detail. Not at all. But it does mean considering the audience for everything you produce, and producing it with an eye toward design. Think of it this way - it isn't just about the quality of your design ideas, but also the quality of how you convey them.

5. It's not just a job, it's a profession. I am extremely passionate about this principle. While I don't discount that there are some pure natural design geniuses, most of the rest of us are mere mortals. I have a masters degree in the field, and have spent two decades practicing and reading and learning my profession. As such I have little patience with those who seem to think they can click their heels three times and call themselves an interaction designer, or a usability engineer, or whatever - all without having the foggiest idea of fundamental human-computer interaction and design principles, or without having any familiarity with the body of knowledge, or with the important thought leaders of the field. And, frankly, this means more than simply browsing a couple of web sites every once in a while. Like all established professions, we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. When I was in graduate school twenty-some-odd years ago the field was small enough that you could literally read the body of literature. This is no longer the case, but you darn well ought to be familiar with the major works, and you darn well ought to be actively staying in touch with the field though readings and publications, local professional networking groups, and other training opportunities. Another way to think of this is as using constant professional learning as a means of continual process improvement - of learning and getting inspired by others to continually improve yourself. (Which reminds me, I posted a "top 5 books" list to my web site several years ago, and it is in dire need of updating - maybe that will be my next bog post.)

There you have it. Five things that are important. Have you thought about your own career principles? Or maybe just as important, do you have any idea of what your manager thinks, and whether his or her principles are in concert with your principles?

Design is about articulating vision of what is to be

In my reading and conversations and thinking lately I keep coming around to this phrase: design is about articulating vision of what is to be.

I was struck by this thought several times yesterday, including late last night while reading a passage in Henry Dreyfuss' autobiography, Designing For People. Dreyfuss was, IMO, the most important industrial designer of the twentieth century. Among other things, he designed the Twentieth Century Limited locomotive, the classic John Deere tractor, the Honeywell circular wall thermostat, the classic Hoover vacuum cleaner, and perhaps most iconic of all, the Bell model 550 telephone (the classic desktop phone). It was Dreyfuss' passage about the model 550 that stuck me. Here are some snippets from a section that is about three or four pages long:

Toward this goal, we proceed slowly, discarding more innovations than we accept.

Every conceivable kind of handgrip was considered...     Laboratory and field tests by typical telephone users...pointed up advantages.

...the phone began to fall into shape. This is an easy way of stating that something like 2500 rough sketches were scrutinized and narrowed down to half a dozen...

It would serve no purpose to confound the reader with the infinite mass of statistical detail that had to be carefully studied, the suggested changes that were agreed upon, rejected, or modified, and the compromises effected between engineers and industrial designers. Inherent limitations dictated much of the design.

Our office was in turmoil for weeks over what was called the "ROH Battle" - receiver off hook...

Sketches were made of all these variations, then accurate layout drawings. These were followed by full-size "breadboard models" of the components. When several designs appeared likely, they were modeled in clay, which can be easily modified as ideas develop. Later they were cast in plaster, sculptured and lacquered. This high polish was important so that the model could be analyzed for light reflection that might prove annoying or tiring. Some were equipped with mock components such as handset dials, cords, and number plates to simulate the finished product. When all decisions were made, a bronze master was made of the final design.

Is this any different than what those of us in software product design do, other than we don't work in the physical realm but in the software realm? I think not. All of these things ring true - the discarded ideas, the formative testing, the endless sketches and detail, the interaction between developers and designers, the inherent limitations of the software architecture, and the weeks of turmoil over thorny design problems.

And what Dreyfuss is describing, to me, is the many different ways of articulating vision of what is to be, every step of the way.

There's a side topic here too, about the role of "specs." Too many software organizations, I think, confuse design with "writing the spec." I think design is all of those other ways of articulating the vision of what is to be, each one reducing uncertainty and answering questions and focusing the idea. Then you write the spec, if needed, when things are pretty well nailed down. Not unlike how the telephone bronze master wasn't made until all the decisions were made about the final design.

Gender and Design

Talk of gender issues and the high tech industry usually focuses on the glass ceiling - the dominance of men in the senior leadership positions of many high tech companies. But there is a growing awareness of the importance of gender considerations in the design of technology products. The headline article in the Business section of today's Boston Globe, titled "Tech's feminine side" is a high level introductory look at the issue.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Laura Beckwith, one of the researchers quoted in the Globe article. Laura, now working at Microsoft, researched computing and gender issues while obtaining a Ph.D. at Oregon State University. She looked at how the design of end-user computing environments, such as spreadsheet debugging tools, influenced performance differences across male and female users. I was fascinated to learn of her work, and found it fundamentally important. You can learn more about it here.

The very important bottom line is summed up in this quote by Laura in the Globe article:

"There's a possibility that if you don't consider gender when you're designing your software, you are unintentionally designing for one and not both genders."

Two (count 'em, two!) Boston-area UPA meetings this week

For the moment I will put aside my rant that we have too many splinter groups in the greater Boston area - Boston CHI (formerly SIGCHI, and IMO the granddaddy of all of these upstarts), UPA Boston, NH UPA, Boston-IA, and IxDA Boston are just five - and I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two more.

Anyway, what is this post about? Oh, yea - this coming week we have both NH UPA and Boston UPA meetings.

The NH UPA meeting is on Tuesday night, February 19 at PixelMEDIA in Portsmouth, NH. The meeting will feature four 10-minute talks, one each by Chauncey Wilson (Autodesk), Shannon McHarg (H&R Block), Rebecca Richkus (Autodesk), and Margot Bloomstein (PixelMEDIA). Go Chauncey and Rebecca! See the NH UPA site for more info.

And Autodesk is again taking the spotlight on Thursday night, February 21, at the UPA Boston meeting. This one will be held at Autodesk in Waltham, MA, and the theme is a series of short talks about design and usability organized by Chauncey and the Autodesk Revit product design team. More info is available on the UPA Boston site.

I'll be at both meetings this week, cheering on the home team.

Start Simple, Build Complexity Over Time

I just ran across a post by Paul Graham titled Six Principles for Making New Things. Paul succinctly stated his principles as:

"I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly."

Sweet. I like it. I was immediately reminded of one of my own often used design aphorisms:

Start simple, build complexity over time

Yes, I'm aware that the grammar is a bit awkward. And I also admit that this is just a variant on Occam's razor.

But I'm amazed at how often we in the software industry paint ourselves into design corners by violating the law of parsimony. Really good software design takes a tremendous amount of discipline, and a willingness to draw boundaries in the name of elegance, simplicity, and usability. Design for the essential, not the edge cases. It turns out to be much easier said than done.

Interaction 08 Videos

The Interaction Design Association (aka, IxDA) held its first annual conference, Interaction 08, last week in lovely Savannah, GA. Exciting times, and a potentially important step toward a more recognized establishment of the interaction design profession.

And even better, they are posting a ton of videos of the sessions on brightcove (and soon on the conference site as well). See this post in the IxDA discussions for a list of the first batch of videos.

This is going to chew up hours of my time. First stop for me is Alan Cooper's keynote address, An Insurgency of Quality. And then maybe Jonathan Arnowitz on Effective Prototyping Methods. And then, and then...

Thank you, IxDA!

Airbus A380 Cockpit

Oh, wow. This is so cool - Airbus A380 Cockpit. After it loads, put it in full screen mode (last button on the right), and you can use your mouse to pan (click and drag) and zoom (mouse scroll wheel).

Really well done (although the mouse panning is backwards from what I expected, but I quickly adjusted).

(It's done Flash, by the way.)

January NH UPA Chapter Meeting

A little public service announcement...

The first official New Hampshire UPA (Usability Professionals' Accociation) chapter meeting is this coming Thursday, January 24th, at UNH in Durham. Some of the details...

When:
Thursday, January 24th
Refreshments & Networking: 6-7:00 PM
Meeting: 7:00 PM

Where:
University of New Hampshire (UNH)
Kingsbury Hall, Room N101
33 College Road
Durham, NH

Guest speaker: Jared Spool
Topic: What Makes a Design Seem Intuitive?

RSVP: Seats are limited. You must RSVP to attend. Send RSVPs to info@nhupa.org.

NH UPA meetings are open to anyone who is interested in attending. Membership to the UPA is not required.

Stay informed about NH UPA meetings and events by joining the NH UPA Yahoo! group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nh-upa/.

Boston CHI November Meeting

BostonCHI, the New England area chapter of ACM SIGCHI Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction, is holding its monthly program meeting this coming Tuesday night, November 13. Socializing over tea, coffee, drinks, and food starts at 6:30pm, and the featured talk starts at 7pm.

This month's featured talk is:

"'Umm, No, I Don't Actually Think That's Such a Good Idea'
OR How to Say Things your Client Doesn't Want to Hear"
Ilise Benun, Marketing Mentor

Read more about it on the Boston CHI monthly meeting page.

But, no, I won't be going. Instead I am heading to Seattle to visit some customers this week.

NH UX October Meeting

(I know, I know. I was supposed to post more often, not take the entire summer off. What can I say? Here's to a renewed effort to post more often...)

I spotted notice of this NH UX October Meeting in a recent post to the IxDA discussion list. I'm pretty sure I'll be attending.

Topic:	Bias in Usability Testing
Speaker:	Carolyn Snyder
When:	Tuesday, October 30, 2007 6:30 - 7:00pm Food, Beverages & Networking 7:00 - 7:15pm NH-UX Info Update 7:15 - 8:15pm Presentation
Where:	Fidelity, 2 Contra Way, Merrimack NH
RSVP:	Please RSVP to Amy Cueva

Abstract:
In usability testing, we strive to eliminate bias so that the results will be accurate. But what is bias anyway? How does it affect our results? What can we do about it? And are we, as usability specialists, truly objective? Usability consultant Carolyn Snyder will lead a stimulating discussion about bias in usability testing - something we encounter on a daily basis but may not consciously think about. There are many sources of bias in usability testing, from users to tasks to reporting. Every testing methodology is biased, and so are we as facilitators. But bias is not something to be shunned. Instead, we need to understand its sources and weigh its effects. Sometimes, bias can even be harnessed to serve our purpose. Come to this presentation and you'll never look at your testing methods the same way again!

Bio:
Carolyn Snyder is an independent usability consultant in the greater Boston area. In the past 15 years she has conducted hundreds of usability tests on dozens of products and interfaces. Carolyn is the author of the book Paper Prototyping (she'll give away a copy at this presentation) and co-author of two books on web site usability. She has a BS in Computer Science and an MBA, both of which have biased her perspective :-). More information concerning Carolyn's consultancy is available at Snyder Consulting.

Palm Has Lost Its Mind, Or At Least Its Way

Also from D 2007, Palm's Jeff Hawkins introducted the Palm Foleo. Story and video clip on the D5 site here, and recap and lots of pics on the Engadget site here.

What the bloody h*ll are they thinking? It looks all the world like a small, underpowered laptop. Why would I want one of those? Why in the world would I want yet another device, this one physically in-between my smartphone and my laptop? For five hundred bucks? You gotta be kidding me!

Palm has losts its mind.

Microsoft Surface

Oh, and if you haven't checked out the Microsoft Surface vision videos yet, you should.

Google Maps Street View - Good or Evil?

Holy crap! Google Map's new Street View is at once both fascinating and exciting, and utterly frightening for its privacy implications (or lack thereof, actually).

For the fascinating and exciting, the very first thing I did was find this view of the Golden Gate Bridge. What fun! How about the view from Coit Tower? Or maybe the crooked part of Lombard Street?

Hoo boy, I can see myself wasting hours and hours.

But wait. An article in Boing Boing gets you thinking. First it starts with this guy's cat. But then the number of car license plates you can read starts to get you to thinking - and it is very easy to find a ton of 'em. Or, does the owner of this beautiful Ferrari really want its picture so available? Or these girls catching some sun? How would you feel if it was you taking out the trash? Or crossing the street? Or were in front of a strip joint?

But then again, we're going to have so much fun exploring New York, Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, and, of course, San Francisco and the Bay area. I can't wait till they add Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, ...

It Shouldn't Be This Hard

I have used Palm devices since the very first Pilot. I love the Palm OS. I love my Treo 650. I'm trying really hard to stay in love, but the BlackBerry Pearl keeps singing that siren song, pulling my thoughts again and again toward going CrackBerry.

Today didn't help.

One of brilliant successes of the Palm OS, in my opinion, has always been the ease and simplicity of HotSync. From the very start, it was brilliant and it just plain worked. Pop your Palm device into its cradle, press the HotSync button, and magic happens. It's always been wonderful magic. And it seamlessly updated my data from the Pilot, to the Palm III, to the Palm V (oh how I loved the sleek design of the Palm V - IDEO design really shined on that one), to the Treo 300, to my current Treo 650. That's 11 years of data transfer across 5 devices.

But lately Hotsync has been a nightmare for me. I sync at work on my work laptop. We use Outlook, and I could never get the Palm Outlook conduit to work, so I have been using the Intellisync conduit with a completely acceptable level of success. Well, at least until I started getting that cryptic error message every time Hotsync started. And then there were the syncs that never ended (until I used Task Manager to kill the process). Oh, and the random Hotsync crashes too.

I never lost any data, but each and every sync was turning into a "hold your breath" moment.

So today I had enough. It took nearly two hours (with the normal office interruptions) to:

• Stop both Intellisync and Hotsync, uninstall them, delete their folders from the disk, and manually remove all traces of them in the registry.
• Download and install Hotsync (Palm Desktop Manager, really).
• Download and install Intellisync.
• Call Intellisync tech support and get them to reactivate my serial number, as it seems the uninstall didn't correctly notify their license tracking system.
• Finish activating Intellisync.
• Download and install the latest Intellisync patch updates (at the suggestion of the very helpful tech support person).
• Uninstall and remove all traces of Hotsync and Palm Desktop again, as I was once again getting some mysterious DLL error, and my address book and memos were certainly not syncing correctly.
• Reinstall Palm Desktop again.
• Install the Intellisync patch update again, partly out of superstitious behavior, but also to get the Hotsync software to know about the Intellisync conduit.

And now finally I am able to sync seamlessly and painlessly again. Ugh. It shouldn't be this hard.