I've said it before: the things that make a product great are not just the excellence of the product but also the information and engagement around the product while considering a purchase and then the support of the product after a sale is complete - especially if/when something goes pear shaped. Utilikilts, an American company that makes "American Made Utility Kilts for Everyday Wear" definitely stands in the company of Great Company because of its entire kilt culture experience.
The following post is a review of Utilikilts: it tells the story of why from the in-store experience (and ya gotta get the in-store experience especially for the utilikilt-as-changing room effect), support and post sales problem resolution is rock solid.
So if you're a guy and haven't considered a kilt before, why the heck not? Are you a sissy? If you're a gal, these put the fun into funky - far more fun/funk than jeans, worn low as hipsters.
Utilikilts makes the kilt experience a cultural phenomenon that is explorable, affordable and perhaps best of all usable. The following illustrates how and why that is so.
Technorati Tags: customer experience, customer support, kilts, utilikilt
"Welcome Home"
was the way i was greeted as i walked into the Utilikilt flagship store in Seattle. This from a
staff member whom i'd not met before. I had on a Utilikilt Workman's kilt (the model displayed in the Victoria and Albert museum (pdf) in London), a brown leather jacket and my hair down. Each point was commented upon as a totally righteous way for a gal to "crossdress" with a utilikilt ("cross-dressing" is what utilikilt calls gals who wear their gear). Not used to this kind of enthusiastic greeting from sales staff, i was both flumoxed and delighted - did this person know that i was coming into the store because there'd been a size issue with another kilt i'd ordered? No, it turns out, he did not. This is just the Way of the Kilted Men of Utilikilt greet members (of either gender) of the Clan.
So that was nice. And leads me to wax on a bit about the
In Store Experience of Utilikilt
It may be important to make clear that Utilikilts are designed for Guys, for those Manly Men secure enough in their masculinity to enjoy the freedom of going unbifrucated. Consequently they spend considerable time in their promotional literature to assert the Grr-ness of kilt wearing. To this end they have a suite of Mock-u-mercials made by Utilikiltarians protesting the manliness (and robust functionality) of their Kilt. This award winner, for instance, blends a sub plot of getting an upper chest tattoo with a main plot of carrying out metal work and welding while donning a skull-painted welder's mask (really nice paint job), and of course, wearing a utilikilt.
While in the FAQ they are quick to point out that "women look hot" in their kilts, this intense masculine vibe may suggest an atmosphere unwelcoming to those willing to "cross-dress." I was willing to risk at least crossing the threshold of the store for two reasons: i work out with guys who are nail bending bad ass Big Men, and they are some of the nicest kindest folks i know. So my guess was behind the Grr were sweet people. Likewise, i am passionate in my love of kilts. And pockets. My main kilt lust has thus far been sufficed by Howie Nicholsby's excellent custom made-to-measure 21st Century Kilts from Edinburgh - that have great pockets (shown left in blue pinstripe denim with Howie's custom Juggling Rooster Seat Belt belt).
Much to my delight, when i arrived at the store there were two really geeky guys trying on kilts (not quite the heavy metal rock poster children of many in the utilikilt photo gallery site). Right on. Kilts for All Men (and gals who love unbifrucated pocketed garments)
The customer base exemplified at that moment was not threatening. Indeed, the kind of clean grunge feel of the store itself was funky and inviting.
Blended with the atmosphere comes the in-store sales experience. I was immediately impressed by the fact that there was one sales person in the store, Andrew, and he managed several customers (including me) at once - and effectively so - balancing the awareness of when one of us had a question and needed attention, and when one us needed to mull . Impressive.
Waiting Room. My sense from the next experience in the shop is that this multitasking brilliance may be Andrew's forté. I would therefore encourage anyone planning to visit the shop to make sure you have time to browse, since having the full attention of people on the floor can be a bit of a wait. On this account it would be nice if there were a few more surfaces for sitting, rather than making do with various edges or tool boxes.
Once attention is had, however, it is full on YOU, and care of your sizing and specific kilt interests (utilikilt makes a number of models).
This attention is critical - perhaps especially when fitting women since, as the web site FAQ says, fitting a utilikilt for gals is different than fitting guys. As my hand went to grabbing a kilt close to my waist size, Andrew's hand was there to go further up the rack to larger sizes "these fit on the hips for women" and he was so right. They are hipsters.
And how does one try on a utilikilt?
"So, where is the changing room"
"The Utilikilt is its own changing room," states Andrew, opening out a kilt to walk into, have wrapped around one, and therefrom to drop one's drawers beneath. Goodness. What fun. When was the last time trying something on in a store was so risky (not riskee) - or that a guy helped you robe in such an intimate, if seemingly semi-public way.
After a couple of iterations, an OK fit in one kilt went to a SUPER oh ya that *works* fit version of the kilt. This is why buying online may be a *wee bit* problematic for gals - and why the web site also recommends "go to where the kilts are" for women trying them out.
Which brings us to the next story: the Incorrect Order : even when you THINK from having been in the store that you know your size, the material of the kilt *may well* have a significant impact on the actual size you (a gal) might get for your hipster, cross-dressing utilikilt.
This was an error: in my enthusiasm for these groovy garments, i ordered another model in the same size. The tricky bits were (a) i didn't realize that all sales were final and (b) i was rushed at the time (c) and was trying to avoid the cost/time of a cab ride from Bellevue into Seattle. My previous sale made me think that oh i must know my sizing.
Perhaps the wonderful Johnny with whom i placed this order might have interrogated me to find out either how i had arrived at my sizing or what kind of kilt i had purchased, since the materials may cause a slightly different fit. But perhaps this is an issue that had not actually come up before for fitting a gal (maybe few women buy multiple instances of these things?)
But then, something else that would have been useful to hear on the phone as well was "just a reminder: all sales are final." When i had been in the shop, the kilt i got was a special sale item and Andrew stated clearly "you realize this is a sale item: all sales final; no refunds or exchanges" - No problem: i had the kilt on and was wearing it out of the store. So realize this: all sales are final; only in store credits.
As said, when i ordered this kilt i was dealing with Shipping Jedi (their nomenclature) Johnny at the 800 number for the store. Why did i have more than one chat with Johnny other than to order the item? Because i wanted to arrange to have the kilt picked up by courier in Seattle and delivered to me in Bellevue - apparently this had never happened before. But they were up for it. I treasure the intrigued directions on how to get the courier to the right part of the correct alley to make the pick up. Johnny emailed me to confirm that it had been picked up, and the kilt arrived without incident. Shout out to FleetFoot Couriers in Seattle for their excellent service.
Arriving at the hotel, unpacking the kilt, this is when the concern started: was the kilt just too big, and thus too long from hanging too low on the hips? After a tough evening hemming and hawing about does it fit, does it not? oh gee i think it's too big...what am i gonna do, will i have to return it, i read the fine print on the sales slip: no refunds. And so i had to call Johnny again to say why does this kilt fit so differently? is there a solution? what might it be? If there isn't another right fitting, right colour kilt in stock, am i stuck with this gorgeous but not particularly usable kilt?
Here's where customer service goes to the Right Next Level. Johnny immediately recognized that the usual In Store Credit offered to someone from another country who might never be back in the state to claim it might not be the best customer experience. So "while we are confident that we can get you fitted into the right fit, i've talked with Ben, my manager, who's said yes, in these unique and extraordinary circumstances we'll drop the kilt if we can't get a fit for you." That's cool. So, transport arrangements made, the clock ticking (i had a flight to catch), i head down to the store being assured that the replacement color at the replacement size would be waiting for me.
Amazingly, when i got to the store late that afternoon, it seemed that the replacement kilt of the right size and color had gone walk about. Brett, the staffer who had greeted me with "welcome home" spent considerable cycles on attempting to locate that kilt that Johnny had previously asked Andrew who'd had to go home sick early to pull and set aside. I tired on a longer one with the right waist that they could "chop" - but then i had a plane to catch and their sowers had all gone home for the day. But they'd been willing to find a solution that way if it had been available. Andrew was even called at home, and pulled out of his sick bed to be queried on where he had put the pulled kilt. It just wasn't there.
In a proactive fit of excellence, Brett went down the road to the warehouse himself to go look for the wrap in question. Rather than come back empty handed, Brett came back with a kilt of the right waist and length - though not the color i had picked, but what the heck? Tried it on. Loved how it felt.
Fitting again: Here's an interesting thing: this right size/length but different color model i left with felt *better* in fit than the long version that was supposedly the same waist, just longer. Once again, this reinforces the point on their site: go to where the kilts are. I don't know why the difference - maybe it's cuz on a longer kilt, the pockets are lower down; maybe it's because each of these is hand machine sewn, so there's slight differences. Maybe it's because different dies create different textures. But in each case of each kilt i tried on, each felt unique unto itself.
Fitting Note 2: Women's Tanks. If you're interested in one of the few made-for-women items in the shop, like the hot ribbed tank, gals may find they wish to go up one size. These American Apparel made tanks fit *tight* - even when going one up from your typical, anticipated snug fit shirt. Likewise, go in with a bra/top cover you're happy to wear in public: this is one area where a utilikilt may not be its own changing room.
And, with the kilts exchanged, that was pretty much it. One might stomp and spit a bit: how, after all these conversations and assurances, could the bloody kilt have gone walk about? It was no small deal to come down from Bellevue to Seattle, etc etc. You know, i don't know. Stuff happens. In the worst case, my worst fear was addressed anyway: that if no kilt available, then i could just return this one for a full refund, which was totally off the song sheet of the shop in anycase, so really, no harm no foul, and these guys were working it. Honour and all that satisfied. In future they may keep their pulls better labelled and stashed, but as said, in this case, it worked out: there was a well agreed Plan B in place and for that i thank Utilikilt.
Wrapping Up. Brett also resolved the sale well, and just as we were packing up, even Johnny called over to see if all had been settled out ok, while Jason went on a mission back to the warehouse to get me a not-for-sale Utilikilt mug as a gesture to say thanks for the patience; sorry for the mix up.
The staff at Utilikilt have plainly drunk the Kool Aid, which lends to a super experience. These guys seem to live the product. Andrew had had utilikilts for 7 years; Brett had plainly gone through a suite of them, recounting various experiences with different models at different points in time. It's a strong testament to a retail store that it can hold staff for a long enough period that they know the stock so well and how to fit people and keep up excellent customer service, from phone orders to in store experience. It is a kind of culture thing, and that's cool, too.
So kudos to Andrew, Johnny, Brett for sales handling, Jason for backing up Brett in the store, Sam for connecting the calls and Ben for supporting Johnny on Plan B. Despite the bumps, a super customer experience.
Epilogue: Walking down the Street
The Utilikilt culture is in evidence around the store. As i was walking towards it, about a block away, another kilted person was coming out of it - same kilt model even. There seemed to be an initial disconnect on the gender: am i seeing what i'm seeing - a gal in a kilt? Is that ok? Then, the quiet nod of the head to each other in passing, acknowledging. It reminded me of how in Canada, where motorcycles are far less common than they are in europe, folks on motorbikes tend to nod at each other: we know we're a wee bit off the norm in this pursuit, the nod admits, and we support each other in that. The Utilikiltarian nod felt similar.
Also, the number of times while in the Seattle/Tacoma region someone said to me "Is that a Utilikilt?" or "I love your utilikilt" has grown more than i can count. Brand awareness of this local product seems pretty good. I learned that at Microsoft and Boeing, Utilikilts have the status of "authorized wear." Even at the airport going through security, one of the personnel asked the Is that a... question. I'm ready for it now, as it's kept happening well outside the Home State. Indeed, it's become clear to me why Utilikilt pads a pocket of a new kilt with their business cards: they're to handle the number of times a person gets asked about the garment. So now i just say "Yes it is. Here's a card for the site and how to order"
Some folks aren't ready to make the leap to unbifrucatedness. Some folks chat a bit. Others break out in a big smile, and say thanks, staring at that card like it's magic. It's interesting to see the array of guys who comment, and talk about wanting to take the plunge.
I'm running out of cards.
The following is a meditation on design, and what might happen if enticing delight were a deliberate goal rather than a rare accident of our software and systems designs.
I recently had the pleasure of setting a man's watch for him.
The man was delighted by this act, expressing a joy that might have seemed out of proportion with the result. He told his friends throughout that day that his watch was now fixed and running with the correct time. Each time he retold the story, it was accompanied with this same animated delight.
The watch was only off by four minutes, so not hugely wrong. Apparently, however, it had been wrong for three years. And for three years this man had shared the story of his chronographic offset with colleagues and friends alike. Many, the story went, had tried to fix this watch and reclaim the lost four minutes. The record of hopes raised only once again to be dashed had grown long. But amazingly, this man had not abandoned hope: he kept *wearing* this watch despite the fact that each time he glanced it he had to be mentally adjusted by four. It was not as if he could not afford a replacement. It was almost as if it had become more important to continue to believe in the possibility that one day someone would fix this watch than to find its replacement. Until that day he would continue to offer the watch to anyone who would have a go, just so that *if* that person did succeed, he would be there to savour the delight in having it work again.
Now, since it has been reset, each time he looks at this watch he can re-animate that delight for himself by remembering how long he had carried it with this offset and how happiness could now be felt in such a simple thing as accurate time-keeping. He can also tell his friends his problem has been solved, and they too will share the joy of their good friend's relief. After all, some of them had been there to experience this regular tiny desolation in their colleague's life.
So the delight has not simply been in a watch running with the correct time - that is common - but that *this* watch now runs on time. The surprise and delight tied within the satisfaction that the man's hope or belief in the possibility of restoration of that which was lost was not misplaced all contribute to the delight in the re-set time piece. Such is perhaps the nature of delight: an internal state that is ready to be surprised by the unexpected becoming possible.
The trouble is, that with digital systems it seems that the unexpected is usually to do what should be normal.
Why is being able to set a watch to run on time (what one would hope to be normal) experienced here as extraordinary? What would happen, therefore, if we designed with delight as deliberate goal rather than if we experienced it as a side effect?
Technorati Tags: culture
Consider the parable of the watch: the repetition of the mistimed watch left open the possibility of delight and surprise should what was accepted as "normal" - the wrong time - become the very simple "right."
Computing is filled with examples of coping with the wrong time all too often being the normal.
Imagine the delight in changing that normal-ness of the wrong thing to the right thing. For instance, how frustrating it normally is when trying to get shipping information from an online store, where one has to add the thing to one's cart, register on the site, even provide payment information etc etc all just to find out shipping costs and times - something that will determine whether or not we wish to purchase from that site. Imagine how *delighted* a potential customer would be if the shipping quote was simply available at any point the person wished to know it? Changing the normal expectation of the online store hassle to the right action of giving the customer what they want when they want it may lead to delight and loyalty. They, like the man with the watch, may tell all their friends about their terrific experience with this store, this digital system.
In work we've been doing between MIT and Southampton in projects like Jourknow, we've been looking at imagining a world where one doesn't have to fill in a form to create a note about a phone call or a meeting or the name of a friend or any other kind of information. They simply jot it down, however they like to jot "meeting @ 3 c mc" or "3pm remember to get to meeting with mc" - the note is there; it's also now in the calendar. No forms with clicking and tabbing through 16 fields just to record one event.
It may be that as this potentially delightful way of doing things becomes the new norm, the delight may diminish. For those who would know no other way of interacting with a computer (once we get there) such natural interaction may not invoke delight - it will only be retrospective for those of us who have suffered with previous wrong time "normal."
So, are there attributes where delight may not be dependent on challenging normal so that a design might delight constantly? When was the last time a computer delighted you? Did it keep delighting you? or did what was once delightful become mundane? or did it continue to fold between the mundane and the delightful? I imagine that there will be times when the man looks at his watch and sees the time; at others remembers how it used to be and how it is, and re-kindles that delight for himself - hence a folding between the mundane of a proper normal and the delightful.
For me, my most profound and enduring moment of computer delight was witnessing the Flying Toasters screen saver. Toasters. With wings. Wings that flapped. And made thwap thwap thwap thwap thwap wing flapping sounds against the Ride of the Valkyrie as sountrack. Utterly absurdly gratuitous graphics and absolutely delightful. I remember about five of us huddled around a prof's computer just starring and laughing and poking each other watching the infinite progression of flying toasters across a computer screen.
The normal of the computer was work-based applications; the occasional game. This screen saver used the computer in a completely non-utilitarian, or non-computer or non-normal way. It turned a several thousand dollar piece of hardware into something whimsical. So even when flying toasters were no longer new - we had our own copies of the software - they did not lose their capacity to delight. At any point in the day, if things got a little too intense, well, there was always always flying toasters. There was always this reminder of the difference between the mundane and the unordinary as possible.
Flying toaster moments are all too rare with digital systems.
Why is that?
What would it be like to design deliberately to achieve delight? At least some of the components of delight are afforded by contrast between the expected and the actual; between the normal and the other. Delight takes the expected out of context. The watch that never tells the correct time, tells the correct time. The computer that's meant to be serious does whimsy. Delight is also pleasurable.
With these traits of difference from the expected, the norm, can we use them as motivators for design? Can we construct reverie? It seems that while the perhaps purer delight of flying toasters may be the harder kind of delight to design deliberately, that of addressing the more all-too-common wrong-normals are legion enough to provide an ecstatic revery of delight if only a few of them were tackled with intent. Let us not forget the classic example of the frustration of machines: setting of the VCR to record a program. Was not the delight of the first TIVO not only that commercials could be skipped but that what once was an horrendous process of setting the time on a vcr and then setting the parameters for recording a show became absolutely trivial: here's a program guide; click the show you want right in that guide. Voila - recorded. One may argue that well, we had to arrive at a place where we could get online program guides to be able to click them and send the correct info to a system to translate that into recording information. Right. So what. There are squillions of opportunities for better design where we do indeed have all the technology we could want to make effective systems possible, and just don't do it. It's easier to fill in a form than eliminate it.
Indeed, it's rather sad that there are SO MANY opportunities for this kind of delight in our regular daily interactions in our world. Why, after all, was the man's watch such a gordian knot to those who attempted to fix it? It's just a WATCH. Like filling in forms are what make things simple for computers, crappy watch setting design is what makes setting the time simple for the digital device, not the person using the device.
This is not to say that everything has to be simple. As designer and ACM CHI Fellow Bill Buxton has said, the piano has a very simple interface but it is not "easy" to master. The cost/benefit relationship of learning to master the device can be great, however. But a watch is a watch. The result is simply that it tells the time; it is not a direct intermediary to the muses. It should be simpler to set a digital watch than learning to play a Prokofiev symphony, no?
The moral of the story seems to be that the source of our delight around are devices is all to often when the wrong normal for a fleeting moment behaves as we would hope and expect such a device to behave. And while in part when such behaviour results we have a story of hope fulfilled, as in the man and his watch, that same story is also one of failure: failure of design, of imagination to produce technology that supports us rather than requires us to support it.
Perhaps if we designed with delight as a goal, we would be more likely to achieve something as simple as a digital watch that a human could set without having to be a phd in computer science.
The most popular current Web 2.0 representation is geography: putting everything on a map. It's a powerful thing to do: when we can SEE how close registered sex offenders are to schools and day cares, we have certain reactions about where our psychic sense of "too near" or "too far" meets the legal/phyiscal interpretation of "appropriate distance." A little bit of information, as has been said many times, can be a dangerous thing. This particular offender/schools mash up does not provide a brushing interface that, say, relates re-offender statistics based on various distances from schools to help confirm whether our sense of dread is well-founded our not.
It is with this caveat in mind that, our group has been thinking about how adding not just mapping but temporal mapping might be for a project we have called musicSpace to integrate a variety of musicology sources for easy exploration. More recently in a project called continuum we'd been looking at how to map rich data sets like classical music onto timelines so that the visualization doesn't implode. That is, if there's lots of stuff going on at the same time in a time line, all the info looks like a big blob, or if you zoom out, you lose the surrounding context. Our challenge was to solve the "too much info=blob; too little=not enough information" dilemma. Inspired by that work, we'd like to take what we learned there and think map thoughts.
Mapping Time
What we are calling Temporal Mapping is not unknown but it's not common. to be clear, temporal mapping has one meaning in discussions of disease tracking for instance that doesn't involve visualizations; spatio-temporal mapping has another meaning in computing. The kind of temporal mapping we're considering is more akin to an example from the Land Cover Institute which on a map over a relatively stable geography shows how population density has grown and spread over 200 years. Other work shows how the geography of a place itself (such as a river valley) changes over time.
'Istanbul was Constantinople now its Istanbul" - They Might Be Giants
Our sense of temporal mapping it turns out is more complex than these example because it turns out we are looking at a variety or parameters that change: in terms of locations, borders change; names change and even the geography can change. One way to reflect this change is to use maps that can present borders/locations that are accurate for a given period - this assumes that various places recognize the same borders/place names. Consider the mapping of Taiwan as a political representation issue. To use the music examples, if a composer created something in the 1700s, the borders of the domains were different and the place names may be too, so we need to have maps with borders and place names that are accurate for that time. As we discuss below, there are other issues that come into play when, to coin a phrase, wanting to co-map points that cross times, and thus cross representations of locations.
Even if we don't want to co-map, but restrict ourselves to single maps, there are some challenges: if we know where a piece was composed we map that; if we know where a composer was born we map that, if we know where a composer first performed a piece we map that.
There are a few data subtleties there: do all objects in a classical music repository now need Lat/Long data associated with them, as well as a date? Even there the temporal bit is not so obvious: there are kinds of dates and kinds of locations: how tease these out so they are clear in the UI? so it's clear a person is choosing to see performance dates/locations rather than composition dates/locations. What happens if a work was known to have been taken out and put away over a range of places and times? How is that stored in an object in order to be represented?
If we put aside that question of the back end data representations and UI finesse for the moment, let's assume whatever it is we want to map in music we can map, the more glaring, basic challenges are how both borders and place names have changed not just over the centuries but even within decades. Maps that only map against geography lat/long have it somewhat easier than mapping against historically/politically accurate representations.
And as always, the question of how to represent the information is non-obvious. For instance, how handle multiple names or boundaries for a place? Only show the appropriate name for the specific time? Show all versions to provide context not only of place but between times? These kinds of decisions become critical when crossing domain representations. For example, what happens when looking for a location in europe that produced the most major compositions of the Romantic Era relative to location(s) in Europe of most significant performances in early 20thC. The borders and place names from the 1700s and indeed even between 1914 and 1920 change several times.
So Temporal Mapping is?
Perhaps a fast way to begin to think about temporal mapping in arts and humanities data that involves people, places and times is to be able to accurately reflect these places as they were interpreted both in their times, and in ours, and to be able view these comparisons from any variety of perspectives - comparatively, relatively.
Animation and Insight
A potential benefit of developing temporal mapping approaches for arts/humanities data is in meaning that is communicated through animation: if we can step through the various places by time of where Beethoven worked - see who else was in the neighborhoods at various points, and correlate that with specific works, and perhaps specific historical events and their key locations, can we begin, almost at a glance, to get a new appreciation of a domain space? Do seeing these patterns animated over time and space and politics and whatever else let us ask new kinds of questions - questions that would have been potentially intractable to ask before?
These are early days for our investigations, but from early scenarios domain experts have given us, the ability to step through time, and to see events of interest comparatively across time and space, is a thing devoutly to be wished. These representational desires are driving our current UI research efforts.
I am a fan of Etymotic's ipod ear cannel headphones, the Etymotic ER6i's. I've reviewed them as great, affordable entry level higher end headphones that can really change your ipod listening experience. They are also great noise eliminators with no need for a battery to get that noise cancellation to work.
Recently, i've also learned that Etymotic provides exceptional, beyond the call of duty, customer support. If you're weighing up options of a company to get your next phones from, besides thinking about quality of product, this tale of after sales support may encourage you to look at this specialist group for their excellent work and quality of support.
Technorati Tags: etymotic, gear, service, support
Here's the story. I bought a pair of ER6i's about 18months ago that went flakey on me about 9 months ago. By flakey i mean that one side was cutting in and out, and finally, pretty much just out. I thought well, that's me: i've just treated them too unkindly and maybe that's why they've turned south. When i can i'll get a new pair. In the interim, the price on these phones has come down almost 50%! making them an even better deal than when i first reviewed them. So i got another set 4 months ago. Truth to tell, i used them rarely as my listening habits in the past four months have changed somewhat. They spent most of their time safely in their case (an excellent redesign of the previous pouch - so an even better value than the earlier phones yet again). I was therefore hugely surprised to find that one day, on plugging them in, the left channel was dead.
I thought oh dang, now i have to deal with customer support and warranties - where's the bill where's the bill. I looked at the warranty page on the web site (they actually make it easy to access right from the main page of the web site) and learned that there was a 12 month warranty on these puppies.
That's when i felt like a fool: when my first set died, they were under warranty; now they weren't. But at least the current set were. I wrote customer support whom it turns out i'd written about a year before to ask about filters for the original phones and they'd been great then. This time i was writing though to ask about two things:
First, i was asking how do i proceed to do a warranty claim on the new headphones.
Second, i asked if there was any chance they'd look at the old headphones, even though they were now 6 months out of warranty and it's my fault for not thinking of that sooner.
The response and subsequent interaction was amazing. The customer support person - it turns out the same person i'd dealt with previously, said yes send them both along! That's the first great thing. The second is that i said i'd be in the states for a bit and perhaps if they were able to turn around checking them out, they'd be able to send them to me in the US, rather than back to the UK where it would take me awhile to catch up with them. Yes again - please give us both addresses and we'll do what we can.
And they did. Within a week they were out of my hands, in their shop, and then back to me.
The third great thing, that just blew me away is that in the return box, there was only one pair of headphones. The second had not made it. When i asked about this via email, they were extremely apologetic and said they'd send out that replacement pair via UPS red and that i'd have them the NEXT morning. Now, my email asking about the missing pair went to them late that afternoon. UPS red is not cheap, but they opted to use this service so i'd have both pairs before i left the country. I wrote back to say it's ok; please just send them to the UK by whatever means: i have the one pair now i can use; the other can follow. But no, there they were the next morning. There was even an extra couple sets of ear tips - i'd asked why the tips were now grey rather than white on the replacement pair. Apparently they're all going to this better grade grey tip, but since i expressed a preference for white, the extras were included with this next set.
Now, every step of that experience, from looking after an out of warranty repair, to facilitating a particular shipping request, to recovering from the smallest of errors with the greatest of grace, every step here was a demonstration of a company going above and beyond the written letter of their warranty, beyond customer satisfaction, and getting to customer delight.
It's experiences like this, along with great product to start with, that build customer loyalty for sure.
Here's a shout out to Maureen Defoort of Etymotic Customer Service and to a company that supports this kind of care.
Yet another reason to recommend these excellent headphones.
Personas are often used in design to help inspire team members with an understanding of the stakeholders - the folks who have a stake in a thing - for whom they're develeping and designing their stuff.
Personas are amalgams of attributes for a particular set of traits that make up a Type of User (or stakeholder) who has to carry out a task. These personas are also known as stereotypes. These stereotypes are really rich: they have names, ages, economic backgrounds, their likes/displikes; their jobs and other information about where the process of interest intersects with their lives.
Eg, Tony is a 34 year old white sales rep. He likes to dress up funky. He wears a shirt and tie, but uses a messenger bag rather than a brief case. He likes his double shot cap first thing in the morning. He's been in sales for 6 years and has been with his current team for 8 months.He has to make 2 sales a day to keep his job, so he's on the phone all the time. He does not have a lot of time to learn about new specs for the products he has to promote. He usually gets this information from links in emails to web pages about new products he'll be asked to promote to clients. His main clients are mid size firms. He makes site visits in his territory once a month (and so on...)
These stereotypes are built up usually by talking with a range of people in these positions, analyzing the data, and creating the composites. The challenge has been: how communicate these rich personas to the people who need to know about them - people like software engineers. The folks at CISCO found a surprising (and surprisingly effective) method: action figures.
Their approach was described in a session at CHI2007 called "Making Personas Memorable" (pdf).
Technorati Tags: chi 2007, chi2007, personas
The User Experience Design Group at CISCO trialed several approaches to presenting personas: stock photos of real people AS personas, realistic sketch versions of the photos, and finally, dolls. While initially the use of dolls was thought to be simply not credible, ultimately they became THE mode for communicating stakeholder needs in a way in which team members could empathize with, and be interested in.
The persona figures were photographed, and then photoshopped into "day in the life" stories to provide context for the personas. Stand up cardboard cards of the personas were distributed in the CHI2007 conference packs - these same cards now populate engineers' desks. Apparently at design meetings, these personas are referenced regularly to validate claims about an idea for a process "No, Millie wouldn't do that because..." and so on. (There's a figure called Vincent that they don't talk about too much: i think he looks like Christopher Walkin).
While the CISCO UXD team is interested in investigating more about how/why these figures are seemingly more effective than photos of characters, the appeal of the approach seems immediate. If the cost of the dolls manufacture weren't quite so prohibitive for the academic space (2000 originally; now CISCO pays 600 per), this seems like an incredible tool to help keep user needs in front of developer teams in an enjoyable and effective way. Use of second life avatars was discussed as a possible alternative route - but i wonder if the physical-ness of the dolls isn't an important factor for take up? The team speculated that the fact that these dolls were obviously professionally created - weren't just photoshopped up in a way that "anyone could do it" - also had a role in the takeup of the dolls.
No matter whether real or memorex or second life, these kinds of action figure personas (apparently they fit right in with the spider man action figures in some engineers' cubicles) seems well worth taking up.
I had recently read an article in "best life" about plastics and their nastiness - a nastiness even so called recycling of plastic could not tame.
In the lab where i'd been working water bottles are ubiquitous - everyone, it seems, has the stay hydrated mantra. My main use of waterbottles had been for workouts - chuck some recovery drink in 'em, shake, suck back on the ride.
My two big-mouth Specialized plastic bike bottles - ancient by plastic standards - had just about reached the point of no return. I really like the Specialized design: the bottles are large - near 24oz. The cap is wide enough easily to get in ice cubes or scoops of powder, and the thing you bite down on is both easy to chomp down on to pull out while riding, and is likewise soft enough not to knock your teeth out if you hit a bump will chugging along. Mine were also clear but slightly frosted - easy to see how much water is in 'em. But alas, these bottles were of the plastic variety. Was my only choice for a replacement another non-recyclable, relatively short term material?
Enter the Klean Kanteen - stainless steal, lean and robust vessel. But enter also Camelbak's new polycarbonate water bottle,
The following overviews the pros and cons of each bottle, and why a plastic one, sadly, in certain key circumstance, may still be the only option.
Technorati Tags: camelbak, fitness, gear, health, klean kanteen
Klean Kanteen
The Klean Kanteen is a simple concept - a stainless steal flask that is for a 24% bottle, a smaller than usual circumference, so it appears tall and narrow. It is robust - preferable to the SIGG brand of thicker, wider, less abuse resilient Swiss (aluminum, coated) bottle. The Kanteen also comes with several choices of top: a child style spout, a flat canteen type top, and what is advertised as a "sport top." Herein lies the promise and the problem of the Klean Kanteen as a multi-purpose water-bottle. The top is styled like a sports bike bottle top where one bites down on the pipet and sucks back.
The bottle is a great idea - it's light, slim design and stainless steal finish is highly attractive. Unlike plastic it is possible to wash thoroughly AND get out any grunge that can accumulate in plastic - with an aftertaste even after soap that never quite seems to leave entirely. It's rugged, and has a wider mouth than most of its competitors - more the size of a classic military canteen - so getting ice or sports drink powder into it is no problem.
There are two issues with the KK, however, though they have nothing to do with the bottle. Its all in the Sports top. The first is that the top has an aerator - a wee plastic knob that is designed to release a bit of air while sucking on the drink so that the drink flows properly. It's a potentially good idea. It's just like sticking an extra hole in a tetrapak milk container to help the milk flow evenly out of that little spout. The problem with the aerator in the KK sport top is that it really does suck air. I've gone through three tops, and each one of them makes an audible sucking sound as soon as the top is put to use. A side effect of this noisy bladder is that even with the cap closed, if the bottle goes towards horizontal in your bag, pack or other, count on it leaking. Bummer.
The second issue with the sports cap is that the plastic is too hard to use while active - even with the bike up on a trainer (ie for all intents and purposes, stationary), pedaling made it impossible to use safely. A treadmill was even worse. This bottle is dandy for one sitting down at their desk, or stopping on a hike for a water break; it is sadly currently simply not usable in motion. Likewise if traveling with a full bottle in a bag or pack, the flat top will be needed to ensure that the contents of the bottle don't start hydrating the contents of the bag.
Because of these issues with the top, i mainly keep my KK's at work. Having the Kanteen there is still a great reminder (a) to go get water and (B) make sure i polish one off before lunch and another one afterwards. Their size also makes them easy to cart to meetings. The noise of the top, however, makes them occasionally just too conspicuous.
So a bottle that is otherwise an ecofriendly and well designed for abuse either from hitting the deck of getting jammed around in a pack is made less than useful for those "sport" (and not so sport) encounters for which it would otherwise be ideal.
I contacted Klean Kanteen about the cap, and they have said that they're aware of the too tough for teeth issue, and are working to design a new top. The quick response of the company to this query was very much appreciated. If you don't need a sports top - you use canteens now, then the Klean Kanteen single wall stainless steel canteen is well worth consideration: it's just a better bottle design for its weight to durability ratio than anything else.
Polycarbonate Non-recyclable Blues (greens, yellows, greys....)
But in the meantime of Klean Kanteen getting its sport top worked out, i need a decent sports bottle that has some of the environmental affordances of a steal bottle with the functionality of a sports-usable water bottle. Enter the Camelbak Waterbottle.
At about the same time i was looking for the non-plastic water bottle, Camelbak came out with its first model. Camelbak pionered the "hydration pack" concept - the plastic water bladder with tubbing that could be fed into a pack's pocket. The tube hangs of the pack strap, over one's shoulder. Biting on the tube end and sucking starts a highly respectable flow of water. These bladders are considerably larger than waterbottles, and so let people go for longer outings and still have confidence in not bonking from dehydration (or sun stroke).
It comes as some surprise then that the anti-bottle company would launch a line of bottles. But they have: they come in three sizes, the most common of which seems to be the medium at 27oz. Just about right for a hard one hour pound. The bottles are fitted with a large mouth top and their signature Camelbak bite valve. The top can connect to a straw (included) which means that the bottle does not have to be tipped up to get water flowing: just bite down and suck it up. The top also has an aerator in the top, but it is blissfully silent - as it should be. Also, the top is advertised as "drip proof" and it is: the bite valve folds down into the top when not in use, and even with violent shaking, it doesn't leak (i've tried). - little detail, the top's area where it is grabbed to be tightened or loosened has a rubberized effect, rather than plain plastic, making it easier to grab even if wet.
On the compromise side, the bottle is a transparent, coloured plastic.The plastic is polycarbonate. This is the same material used instead of glass for sun glasses and reading glasses, so it is a highly scratch resistant, durable material - even it it's still plastic. This means, although the thing is plastic, at least the material has the resilience to last years and years. At $12USD - about 4 times the price my old faithful Specialized big mouth - that's a good thing. If you still have a wide mouth sports bottle or Naglen to which you're attached and still want to try out the top, camelbak's web store sells these separately (including straw) for $6USD.
The camelbak is a great gym bottle. It fits nicely into those holders on the treadmills, and is just as comfy on the floor by the weights. And i also really do like being able to see the water level in the bottle - if i'm doing a run, it lets me know clearly how much water i have left, and so i can pace myself accordingly if a fountain isn't in clear sight. The lid also has a loop built into the area where the valve folds down, making it easy to hook through a finger for carrying, or hanging off a carabiner or whatever.
This is, sadly however, not a particularly great bike bottle - it doesn't fit well into the typical cage, whereas the Klean Kanteen does - KK also makes cages specifically for their bottles. One might argue that with the camelbak, if you want that system on your bike, use one of their bladders. But this does seem to be an odd shortcoming - those bladders while great are also a timely pain in the ass - if you do like to use a recovery drink for long rides, you spend considerable time cleaning out the bladder and hanging it out to try. The benefit is worth the maintenance cost for big rides or looong runs - but less so for a 27oz - sized outing.
Nothing, it seems is perfect. Klean Kanteen said they had considered a similar type bite valve as the camelbak, among other ideas which just weren't ready and reliable before they went to market. Their idea was to get customer feedback on the current sport top and make changes if and as necessary. They're currently looking at a pour design "so no sucking involved" - not quite sure how that will work on the move, and that's the critical issue: bouncing up and down on the trail or on the trainer. i'll look forward to updating this blog as soon as those new designs are available.
On the other hand, the type of plastic the camelbak uses is utterly evil. Even if it stays useful for a long time, it'll be around a lot longer as utterly un-useful. (the Camelbak is a dreaded "no.7" plastic) DAM! Now, that said, Camelbak claims that their bottle is recyclable " however some municipal recyclers do not have the capability to recycle the polycarbonate in our bottles. " - that from the downloadable FAQ on their website - sorry i can't give you a direct link - the site uses flash so getting at that link is not readily tractable.
What to choose in the interim of a decent Sport Top on a Metal Bottle?
If you're mainly interested in keeping hydrated at work, the klean kanteen is not only robust, it's rather elegant. If however, you're looking for a water bottle to use for both your workouts AND your work, right now the camelbak waterbottle would be the more appropriate all-rounder - except for the plastic issue.
A more sustainable solution might be to get the Camelbak top/straw combo, and get a bottle that's actually made from recyclable plastic. The ever popular Nalgene actually makes a bunch. The camelbak tops are currently available only on their website, but they say in their FAQ they'll be available at stores that sell the bottles "later this year".
Each of these bottles can be found in the US for a wee range of prices. The best price on the Kanteen is 13.50 USD (at greenfeet.com) - you can get the bottle even cheaper if you opt for the Greenfeet branded version of the bottle. Same product; different logo. With the Camelbak, the best price is around 12bucks, so these bottles are comparable. Some online stores will sell cheaper by a quarter or so, but beware postage and handling fees.
One further note on "recyclable plastic" that i learned from that Plastic Ocean BestLife article: no plastic is 100% recyclable/reusable. To make new plastic stuff (whether fleece jackets or new bottles), new plastic needs to be added. The metal in a Klean Kanteen is 100% reusable.
Happy hydrating.
I've been pondering what the paradigm for the Semantic Web is:
if the Web is like a page + links, what's the analogue for the semantic web?
Where i've come to recently after thinking "star trek next generation's computer in conversation with Geordi LaForge" is a researcher's notebook + memex: a place that blends work in progress with internal and external associations/contexts that become explorable for building new knowledge. The key to the analogy of the notebook is the notion of work in progress, where notes include scattered fragments of information where context/structure is often implicit, and can reach out to external sources, knowledge, references.
I've discussed this analogue in more detail (with pictures) in a blog piece called
"What is the Analogue for the Semantic Web? If the Web is like a Page+Links, the SW is like a..."
Technorati Tags: hci, interaction, mit, semantic web, southampton
Texas has a rep for being a wild place of the righteous cowboy way.
Austin has a reputation for being (a) weird (with a desire to keep it that way) and more recently (b) wired - and wired with intent, as exemplified by the SXSW music, film and tech conference mix
The whole state is also the place for cars - of all sizes (mainly big). Wide open highways and big wide roadways. I can't speak for the rest of the state, but in Austin at least, despite the CAR as the core means of individual transportation, drivers seem to be super pedestrian sensitive. Cars easily give peds the right of way at intersections. Interestingly, walkers also tend to wait for the lights at intersections, too. Jay walking seems the exception not the rule. And it seems to work. There seems to be an easy ebb and flow between cars and pedestrians that is rare. Now, maybe that's all just perception and not what a local Austonian (?) would tell you, but from the touristo/visitor perspective, Austin is a joy to walk.
One other thing? they have some interesting concepts with public transportation: core areas are seviced by something called the Dillo - a free bus service that takes care of the core area - about 5 miles square. It's free. But get this: public buses are 50c for adults. 50c for public transport!! AND Anyone with a university ID card can ride these buses FREE. Staff and students. The bus site has an effective route planner as well.
Austin is the third fastest growing city in the USA right now. It seems somehow incongruous that it would also have such a seemingly progressive stance on transportation. What a joy! visit austin: all the places you'd want to hit are available via bus or by walking - transportation is cheap and walkers are not treated as fair game for target practice.
Bliss.
(oh wow! and there's even wireless past every busstop! i'm posting this from a BUS coming down Congress AND THE CONNECTIONS coming out of shops and restaurants ARE FREE TOO!!!)
Technorati Tags: austin, pedestrians, technology, wifi, wireless
Recently, avid's digidesign group released Pro Tools LE MBox 2 mini: a wee (6" * 1.75 * 5 inch, 1.1 lb) usb 1.1 based audio only interface (no midi and again no firewire or "pro" version as there is with the regular Mbox 2's) that includes Pro Tools LE audio/midi recording and editing software that, at 300 USD, promises to put the Pro Tools experience into even more musician's hands. For those who already use existing protools systems, the Mini promises to be an expensive dongle that will finally enable access to Pro Tools LE software while working on the go. Whether it's a price current LE owners will be willing to swallow is another matter.
Pro Tools systems are the industry standard for recording. It is the Microsoft Office of the digital audio studio domain. The LE line of Pro Tools products has let home and indie studio musicians/engineers access the (near) same features as the Pro Tools HD systems found in many professional studios - at a fraction of their professional price. The advantage of using the LE software is that one can easily take audio files made at home into an HD studio for the full bore studio treatment. File exchange is also facilitated: just like word and power point files can be easily swapped. Read any of the discussions on product sites about software musicians or dj's use, and you'll see most of the time in the discussions on technology, pro tools is the final audio mix system of choice - Logic, Digital Performer or Live for sequencing, but ProTools for the final audio mix.
The Pro Tools LE systems come in a variety of configurations, from the $2500 digi002 8 channel audio/midi mixers/control surfaces to the variety of mobile MBox (usb) and MBox pro (firewire) systems, and now the $300 MBox 2 mini. With Avid's acquisition of M-Audio, Digidesign also recently released a special version of the software, M-powered Pro Tools, specially designed to work with certain M-Audio devices with audio/midi interfaces. So, for 279 on top of your instrument purchase you can use Pro Tools software with these interfaces.
The disappointing disadvantage to these systems is that use of the software requires that one of the specified interfaces be attached to the computer when using the software. Forget about whipping out your laptop to edit your work while you're on a train/plane somewhere: unless you have that hardware plugged in, the software won't start. And if you already have a protools system and then get an m-audio, m-powered aware device, can you use that m-audio device to boot up your protools LE software? No. You have to buy the m-powered pro tools version of le to use directly with those devices. Of course you can use those devices with pro tools - when your pro tools hardware is attached.
Think of the hardware interfaces as giant iLoks, or dongles that won't let you access the software without some hardware authorization device attached. At least, i'm guessing this is digidesign's rationale for not allowing paid and licensed users to access the software without the hardware attached. Hence begins the rant.
Technorati Tags: audio, pro tools, technology
Audio is one of the last holdouts for arcane protection mechanisms. While many companies like Ableton and Native Instruments have moved to online registration systems for their software, there are still several key Old School manufacturers that rely on some form of crippling physical authentication. While some companies (apple with Logic Pro is an example) use their own proprietary format USB dongles, ILok's are the major dongle of choice for many in the audio world - and they have a lovely insurance policy if something happens to your iLok - you can pay $30 a year for "zero downtime" to get *temporary* licenses back should your lok be lost or stolen, and then one gets the permanent licenses from the software vendor - somehow - but that only works if the company using the iLok system agrees to that replacement policy.
One of the biggest audio effects makers, WAVES, does not support ANY recovery of license authorizations if your iLok is lost or stolen. Instead, they say "Waves does not offer replacement keys for lost or stolen iLok keys or authorizations. We suggest insuring your iLok key to cover the possibility of such misfortune happening." Does that mean they expect license holders to have to repurchase the software? YES! that's what the insurance is for, stupid: buy new software. This i fail to understand - what i fail to understand is WHY NOT just work like a credit card when it's reported lost or stolen: with a credit card, as soon as you report it lost or stolen, the issuer kills the numbers and issues new ones on new cards. Surely the same could happen with these plugins? Authorization is validated at each use on any machine: if the numbers have been cancelled, the dongle no longer functions.
Plainly there's a business model that says NOT supporting something this straightforward with zeros and ones is in the company's interest, and since Waves has the lion's share of the effects market in big production work, what motivation is there to change? As many many posters on many audio forums note, all waves plugins have been hacked and work flawlessly on the PC (too bad for mac users!) so once again, the only group this copy protection strategy hurts are legitimate users.
But i digress. This is about Pro Tools. As for Pro Tools, their hardware acts like such an authorization dongle, and is equally if not more exasperatingly irritating than a dongle because usually their physical dongle hardware has some heft to it. The MBox 2 Mini is small, but it's not tiny. On the plus side, it has a kensignton lock port on it (try that with an iLok! ha!). And it does offer what's reputed to be a good headphone jack which is nice for editing on the go. So a dongle with some features that may actually be useful when NOT RECORDING just editing.
Don't get me wrong: for someone looking for a decent audio interface that will let them into a Pro Tools space, this could be just great. For those who want midi and more than two tracks on a portalbe interface, there's other MBox's. For those already there with pro Tools who have been wanting a way to edit their sessions on the go, the MBox 2 Mini may just be the dongle to set one free - relatively speaking.
It will be interesting to see how many people who already have digi002's for instance add the Mbox 2 Mini to their gear finally just to get on the go with their session editing - of course, carrying their usb hub, too, so that they can plug in all those platform specific dongles.
The most popular mechanism for visualizing RDF - the underlying language to represent the Semantic Web - is a Great Big Graph. Take a look at any model you wish: rdf-gravity is a Big Fat Graph; frodo is a UML-like connected flow chart thing; there's RDF Graphs with GSS; and there's a suite of redeployed classic Node style visualizers that have been modeled and applied anew on rdf (pdf). And that's just a light sampling.
What is this obsession with using graphs to represent RDF?
At first i thought it was because Java, a tool frequently used to create these visualizations, comes default with a Touchgraph component, and its bouncy connected parts have a certain "gee whiz-ness" to them - at least the first time one sees them.
Now it seems, the use of graphs has become a (bad) habit, an overused trope, representing what David Karger calls the "pathetic fallacy" of using graphs to represent the Semantic Web ( a quiet exchange in a paper review that we're now teasing out into a Position you're reading here...).
So what's wrong with Great Big Graphs? After all, RDF is a graph. Ya well, as Karger's comments continued, so's the Web (ps), but we don't see people exploring the Web via it's bowtie shaped nodes (pdf), do we? Indeed, Kager takes this assertion further to state that "everything" can be represented by a graph, and yet we do not use graphs to represent "everything." Why not?
Great Big Graphs are known to address two things that we rarely want to do on the Web: show the Shape and Density of some collection of things so that we can say things like "Oh that's really big" or "there's a lot of activity going on down there in that part of the graph, but not much up here." The classic issue with a graph, however is that to get the overview, detail gets lost. Conversely, as we zoom in, the context gets lost. This loss of context is particularly irritating in touch graphs where zooming in on a component apparently breaks it off from the rest of its graph. This focus vs context issue of any graphical representation of information where the goal is to someone show the whole thing and yet also provide detail is a classic problem in Human Computer Interaction, and the subject of considerable research {refs to follow, but in the interim, take a look at the topic "focus + context" in the ACM digital library's search box}.
At the heart of the problem is that at scale (when there is considerable data to represent), or as soon as what a system is trying to model as a complete entity takes up more than one page/screen, the detail/overview compromise kicks in. Whether the graphs are UML diagrams, flow charts, clustering graphs, maps of geographical areas or maps of streets or networks, scale forces a compromise between focus and context, but if the interest IS in exposing an entire domain at once graphs and the techniques for balancing focus+context can be extremely effective (consider the micro map of either a 3D gaming environment that shows where one is in a world from an overview perspective relative to one's first person perspective; or the similar technique used in a Photoshop document where when zoomed in to work on a small section of image a map tool shows where one is working relative to the rest of the image. This map tile outline can also be used to navigate and reposition one's work area in the image). A question emerges here, however: if graphs are typically deployed to show the WHOLE of whatever is graphed, why is that an appropriate model for providing access to the Semantic Web? And if it isn't (a) why are we using it or (b) what alternatives are there for considering how to wrap up RDF data for effective use?
A fundamental question from the HCI perspective related to the above would be: what question/task/need is a given graph or other visualization answering? or perhaps, to put the question another way, what visualizations/representations/interactions would best support the specified tasks? And to push that question one further, what is particular about the semantic web such that new types of interaction designs may be required to support the types of tasks that are semantic web specific? Indeed this last question is the subject of a workshop on the Semantic Web and User Interaction. The challenge becomes: what, if anything, is special about what the Semantic Web enables such that existing UI paradigms don't suffice?
We've suggested that Great Big Graphs (GBG) are not appropriate as a de facto way of presenting the Semantic Web because the tasks it supports are limited. This limitation is not in itself a bad thing, but that we'd suggest that there is not a strong match between what a GBG provides and the kinds of information support people who use the Web have come to expect (try doing email or buying a book with a GBG).
Part of the problem, one may assert, is that SW data is delivered with more in common with a database and its schema than a Web Page - but even that argument doesn't wash, since most commercial web sites are delivered with a database back end now - and they look like web pages. So, the question, to repurpose Freud somewhat may be not why do graphs suck for the Semantic Web, but "what does a (SW) user want?"
Another way of putting the question of what do we as SW users want may be: "what are we trying to do?" Ben Shneiderman, HCI Guru at the U of Maryland, and his student Bill Kules, have more recently been framing the question as "what do you want to know?" effectively, Shneiderman has said forget trying to show everything since we can never see everything at once anyway, and focus on the kinds of things that are of interest to the explorer. Much of shneiderman's work, from spotfire to the more current hierarchical clustering, has indeed focused on enabling researchers to focus on the kinds of questions of interest to them - such as being able to look at the results of a variety of functions when applied to sets of datas - thus being able to see for instance in what conditions are their outliers.
The advantage of keeping the question as "what do we want to do" rather than "what do we want to know" may more explicitly capture one particular attribute of the Semantic Web which it has in common with many Web 2.0 applications: the desire to DO something on the Web with the data itself. To tag it; to edit it; to share it; to push it into new and or other representations.
These attributes of edit/tag/share are possible with Web2 aps, which break one part of pre Web 2 models, where the web is interactively read only. However, the specific affordances and constraints, to use Don Norman's terms, of the Semantic Web may take us beyond even these relatively new ways of interacting with information on the Web.
Difference at Source leading Difference at Interface
One of the interesting features of the semantic web that is not harnessed by simple Great Big Graphs of RDF is the fact that it is increasingly possible to break the paradigm of the page (called for in You've Got Hyperext) and actually enable people to choose a variety of representations for the information out there, depending again on what they want to do with it. Likewise, the immediate possibilities of how one set of data might be repurposed with another set of data automatically is also a remarkable and still largely untapped affordance of the Semantic web.
This capacity is enabled by that same RDF that wraps up and makes communicatable the semantics of the data in relation to itself and to other data. Just as the schema of a database makes visualizations like Spotfire possible, the RDF of the semantic web will make richer mechanisms for engaging with data possible.
We see some of this page-breaking, cross-web, context sensitive flexible repurposing of data in Semantic Web Applications like Haystack, piggy bank, AKTive Futures and /facet (pronounced "slash facet"), and from Semantic Web/Web 2.0 hybrid applications like mSpace and mSpace mobile
AKTive Futures, for instance, uses a cartesian graph as one facet of its interface presentation. The core interaction of the UI is to select countries for one axis and ranges of years for the other to look at trends in oil production in those places and times. By clicking on a spot on a line on the graph, the stories that are associated with those confluences are presented in a secondary window. In this case, the use of a particular kind of graph is appropriate for the task the designers of the application wish to support. Date and output data from MULTIPLE resources, (not just one database), are, as numeric data, represented in a numerically relevant fashion - not as static tables but on a graph where, in Shneiderman's parlance, the person using the service is not presented with all data for all time, but is enabled to select the ranges of interest and focus on them with an appropriate format.
For this site, data is coming from all over the Web and converted where it doesn't already exist in SW format into SW format (ie rdf most usually) so that it can be rendered appropriately for this kind of explorable user interface (UI). Indeed, the graph is used to help find trends of interest (not unlike Spotfire) and to use those relations of interest as the way to find the richly associated information to tease out what may have caused that particular moment.
Pre-existing Sites with a Purpose - Predefined Semantic Web UI aps
The above sites are examples of what happens when a site with A Purpose already exists. Haystack's exemplar is the "universal information client" which integrates calendar information with other associated tasks like hotel and flight booking along with finding relevant and related email to support tasks in process. In this case, Haystack is showing the way of using the Semantic Web to do old tasks better, using familiar UI paradigms in new contexts to make it easier to do related tasks that typically draw down on information from a variety of applications: checking email for when a conference is in order to get the dates into the calendar and check out flights for those times.
mSpace's is making classical music discoverable for people who know nothing about classical music. This discoverability is enabled by adding Preview Cues, or the ability to check out not just a piece, but the sound of an area of music, like sonatas or baroque, quickly and easily. This feature in itself is not driven by the semantic web, but it is powerfully supported by it. For instance, there are other affordances that the interface provides that go beyond online music explorers and into what makes the Semantic Web interesting: the browser automatically associates information from different sources about the music in the explorer with the music - choosing "period: baroque" yields a description of that content. This ap is another case of taking familiar and largely effective models for music library exploration and play back, and enhancing them to enable either improvement of previously doable but difficult or cumbersome tasks.
These sites suck in and make shapable information related to sepecific predefined domains. They use specific graphs to present the data in the domain (calendars, maps, timelines) but these are supplemented with or are supplemental to serving other activities, based on interaction models designed specifically to support certain kinds of information exploration and discovery tasks that are well-enabled by the Semantic Web.
For instance, with mSpace, new dimensions can be added to the domain as they become known; musicological data may be supplemented with technical recording data or historical data. The UI makes it possible (to use spreadsheet language) to pivot from one domain to another on a related term - so one moves from beethoven in the context of music to beethoven in the context of history. Sure yes one can do these pivots with databases and spreadsheets. Indeed, George Roberston's Polyarchy work called "Visual Pivot" (pdf) in fact has shown exactly such pivoting in very interesting ways from one database table to another. One may suggest, however, that the Semantic Web has the potential to break from database scale to greater, messier, heterogeneous Web scale.
Dynamic, Free Form Semantic Web UI aps
One of the challenges of the Semantic Web however is to enable us to just get at that rich data via our own dynamic contexts. For instance, suppose there's an interest in finding Jazz music that may be of interest and there's no pre-made mSpace Jazz explorer? or more intrigued yet, someone is interested in not only exploring the sounds of jazz but of seeing what is happening historically both politically and in architecture at the same time as different trends in music are occurring in order to explore the question what was influencing what when?
The above kind of questions means that a person may wish to be able to start exploring from a particular seed or set of seeds from which to start building and exploring relations (though even how to express these seeds may be challenging - another matter for interaction research innovation (ever know what you want but not the terms to express it so that you can find it on google?)). The above mix query means that samples of music need to be available so someone can audition the songs (we do not assume the Questor is a jazz expert) to see what's of interest; engage historical political period data from different regions; enable this data to be contextualized not only by location but by time, and readily explorable by time and by location visualizations. What's the ideal representation for this information as it is assembled? It is NOT a Great Big Graph (alone or primarily).
Web Founder and Semantic Web co-Founder Tim Berners-Lee has been developing an idea called the Tabulator (which i can never seem to find working), Conceptually, one starts with a specific known source of semantic web data, and then rather than in a graph, one selects cells in a tabular representation of the rdf, which expand into fresh tables, etc (go see the site for an image of this - maybe you can even get the demo to work). The data collected in these expansions can then be re-visioned into either a map, a calendar or a timeline (note the term "or"). There's considerable potential here - currently the source of the data is very geeky and not that non-geek friendly - data is expressed in rdf-ease triples like "colorPicture is mentioned in TAGmobile road trip BOS-> Amerst:photo" Qu'est-ce que se?
The tabulator also seems currently to be informed by the old-school Web-as-Read-Only, where as the impetus of Web 2 (and the semantic web) is towards read/write/re-write - a very much more Ted Nelson-ish hypertext vision ( a good thing) than pre Web2 vision.
Mix and Match on the Fly
So, some of the challenges for Semantic Web UI services besides de-geeking things like Tabulator will be to support data in formats so that the application has information that is relevant to what display options may be appropriate for it (dates, map coordinates, contacts). It's not clear what the solution is: micro formats is one approach; fresnel, defined as "a generic ontology for describing how to render RDF in a human-friendly manner" - where the style sheet for a data chunk effectively travels with that data offers another. It will be interesting to see how these approaches work across heterogeneous data sources and distinct contexts. It will also mean being able to add new data/links/tags(?).
That latter observation of the context in which the data is discovered leads back to the earlier observation that UI's for semantic web data, like all other human-usable systems, need to respect and support what the human wants to do with that data. Being able to establish context for multiple intersecting data domains and data types may be as critical as being able to take advantage of a pre-asserted format for a particular data chunk.
The bottom line is that Great Big Graphs have their place, but overall, it's a pretty limited place. Great Big Graphs are generally also pretty easy. The algorithms for pumping data into many graphs are well known. As Karger says, it's a pathetic fallacy to assert that because the data model is a graph the data should therefore be displayed as a graph. It's also, let's face it, a cop out in usability terms, unless all one wants to see is how big is the data set, where are the dense bits etc. The harder question is "how might this data be used? how will we support those heterogeneous requirements - and do so dynamically, elegantly"
People at the coal face of RDF and Ontology development mayn't see it as their mission to consider that more human-oriented approach to representing information spaces for human usable, human-useful exploration. But why not? The result may well be the generation of a generic Semantic Web browser - a tool that would enable people both to explore and contribute to the rich associations possible in the ((increasingly Social and) Semantic) Web.
[update Aug 17 '06 : the version of this blog entry David and i submitted to SWUI06 is available (in html) at http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12911/]
Occasionally, i see things and think now that's a cultural difference that would cause a north american a double take. Seeing cars parked facing either direction on a street. That's a weird one (yes in north america cars are parked facing one way only - no just sliding over to the other side of the street and pulling up onto a curb and parking. You turn your vehicle around and parallel park the sucker into the spot).
Then there's power outlets with individual switches on them. Or windows with little wind powered fans. Or the making of tea in a cup rather than a pot, or the fact that instant coffee is on many restaurants' menus.
But one thing that constantly surprises me is the pervasiveness even in "new builds" of individual hot and cold water taps. It's not that "mixer" taps (hot and cold going into one pipe) are unknown, but that anyone would want a single tap per temperature in either a bathroom or kitchen sink, or even a bathtub is beyond me. And it's not like they're cheaper: the price of two individual the taps is either the same or more as their integrated cousins.
It's a mystery.
When working in a lab or open office environment one gets used to the idea of listening to music with headphones. Anyone walking around with an ipod or other portable audio player also knows the charms of auditioning music in our own little worlds. But there's something else that can happen with headphones, especially if one enjoys music: one can get closer to an audiophile experience.
By audiophile experience i mean the audio experience one has when listening to awesome loudspeakers powered by awesomely clear amps in a space that can show them off (a colleague of mine in Music said that one of the best investments people could make in their stereo system is double glazing).
No but really, what *is* an audiophile experience? It's hard to describe unless you've experienced it. Or actually lots of people spend lots of cycles describing audiophile experiences (it is an industry afterall), but words like soundstage, air, black backgrounds, noise floor, etc etc mean little without some audio point of reference for them.
I had what i would call my first near-audiophile experience a few months back. I went into my favorite audio shop, Phase3 HiFi where i'd been getting stuff like rca connectors and bits and pieces, talked with Sam Lowe, a super friendly and knowledgeable sales person who i've watched give equivalent time and help to somebody asking about a £3 cable as to someone about to drop £3.5k on a cd player.
And that's part of what makes a store like Phase3 worth one's custom: every customer is important; the atmosphere is friendly, knowledgeable and not pretentious. And most especially folks are both keen about what they do as well as helpful. They convey a sense of passion, without ever feeling like you've walked into a scene from High Fidelity where you're made to feel like an idiot becuase (a) you don't know the difference between tubes and solid state or (b) you're not A Rich Audiophile Geek. An example of this kind of passion and easygoingness lead to this story:
I asked Sam if i could have a listen to the components he'd been saying were just oh so fantastic. So that's what we did. We went to their listening room (which looks like a normal living room - very sensible) and Sam sets up the £3K (in GBPs) preamp and £4.5k amp ("This is the set up the Royal Opera House uses") and that £3.5k cd player and the £3k speakers AND the £300 worth of cables to connect the amp, pre and cd player, and the £1000 worth of speaker cable.. (at one point Sam swapped out the £170 speaker cable he'd used for this £1000 Chord Signature UK cable. Don't let anyone tell you wire is wire: another myth shattered: there is a difference. and it's not subtle. Noise i didn't notice before was just gone. The effect that let the music stand out against a "black" background was jaw dropping in contrast. The effect of this absence was stunning).
When everything was set up just so, i was asked if i wanted a coffee while invited to sit on the couch and listen . We'd been benchmarking everything against the eric clapton's live and unplugged cd they had which was a revelation in itself. With this, Sam swapped around a variety of types of speakers and amps, too, just to show what effect each part had on the sound. And then he made one small adjustment (swapped one preamp for another) and my god (really) it was a religious experience. It was just so locked in, the combination. Then, going to another level, i popped in one of my fave instrumental tracks, and ok, i wept. It was piercing, the experience.
Now, i'm a musician and a music lover, and once upon a time i used to both gig live events and record music in actual real studios. I thought i knew what recorded music on a "good" system sounds like. I was SO WRONG. I had no idea that this sound experience of getting this close to (recorded) music was possible. You may be in the same position: you're heard the term audiophile, may have an idea that that means people with more money than sense, but perhaps you've not HEARD what a truly high end system can do to those bits on a cd (or to waves from vinyl for that matter). If you care about music at all, i am sure you will not walk away unchanged from the experience. It's an experience i'd pay for: to be able to use that room, that set up, say for an afternoon, just to listen to music like that.
Rent the audiophile experience rather than purchase it. Why not? Especially since not a lot of people i know are at a place either where they can or would think of heading into that heady space of forking out 7-10k for the "entry level" system above just to have that rush of an audio experience in their homes. They have kids to put through college; car payments, mortgages, student loans to pay off. And, just in passing, yes, £7-10k, the cost of a small automobile, is entry level. What would be "high end"? Consider something like the 75kUS/pair for british made Chord Electronics monoblock power amps and you go from price of car to substantial down payment on a house.
There is another way to get close to that heady audio experience: try headphones. Wiith a little help from some good headphone gear, which is about a tenth the cost for an equivalent speaker-based experience it's possible to get that kind of hi end audio experience. It's also potentially easier to check out this version of audiophile nirvana than requesting some private time in the room upstairs. Indeed, if you have a portable digital music player, there are some free ways to improve what you're hearing right now, too.
The following describes some approaches to audiophile headphone happiness - a word though, before continuing. Some engineers accuse "audiophiles" of being people who just get intrigued by the gear, not the music. That may be for true for some folks - like sports fans who care perhaps more about the player stats than about the joy of the game (and so what if they do!) What follows is not about gear intrigue: it's about getting closer to that ecstatic experience, the joy of hearing music. The french have a word for such folks - it's mélomanes: music lovers (thanks to Sam Tellig's Stereophile July 06 review of Quads for this term). The following story of headphones is offered up for les mélomanes.
Headphones can offer a potential audio experience that is earth shakingly good, and possibly better than what many of us would be able to or want to invest to replicate in a freestanding loudspeaker system - especially if your accommodation won't let you let those speakers rip. There are several stages to this: data source, player source, amplification source, digital to analog conversion, and of course, headphones.
Improvement One is Free. The Data Source.
Most folks listen to data now either off a cd or off an mp3 file. Bit rate can and does make a difference, and you don't have to have the golden ears of a 22year old (you're golden ears are over the hill after 25) to appreciate the differences. There are encodings like FLAC or Apple Lossless that really do replicate what's on the cd, but at half or less than the size of the original recording. Try playing back a lossless file against a 128bit mpg out loud over typical external computer speakers and you'll hear a difference on these very not audiophile components. So that's a for-free audio improvement - or largely for free - larger files take up more space, but that space becomes less of an issue as larger and larger drives become common - why not try Apple Lossless or FLAC with some of your fave CD's and see what you think.
Alternately, there is a school of thought that says 128 AAC Variable Bit Rate (aac, not mp3 and VBR on) on itunes, combined with great headphones (discussed below) yields results that are indistinguishable from CD's - and that's the opinion of a recording engineer - who also councils to be SURE to turn on ERROR CORRECTION in the prefs/advanced/importing if you rip your cd's with iTunes. Truly, it's great to have smaller file sizes for one's ipod - smaller file sizes means less harddrive spin up to access all the data and therefore better battery performance, but try it yourself: put a 128 AAC VBR, error corrected file you know really well next to an Apple Lossless or FLAC encoding or your system of choice and see what works for you.
An advantage of Apple Lossless is that you have all the data and can later encode down from there to 128 or whatever AAC you want at some future point - that's thinking archivally.
Improvement Two - Headphones.
The next part of the experience of course is a good set of headphones. What are good headphones? That question is the subject of endless discussion at head-fi Let's just say that Sony rarely gets mentioned, but German companies are very well represented (Beyer Dynamics, AKG, Sennheiser, Ultrasone...), with each flavour of headphone presentation having their partisans. Discussions range around qualities like sibilance, sound stage, color, neutrality, micro and macro dynamics, harmonics - all to do with how much of the recorded experience your headphones replicate and how.
You can find many comparative reviews of various "cans" online. One exemple is the sennheiser HD 650 which does very well in
non-comparitive reviews likethis by Wes Philips of Stereophile, or this interesting one on CameraHobby, but throw them in with others, and the flavours in the review space show up. A great source for such reviews that's free is Stereophile , but again a keyword search on your fave search engine for "review headphone x" will pull up a plethora of information.
>Will that be Closed, Open or In Your Ear?
There is also the issue of whether you want in ear phones or closed back or semi closed back or open. There are excellent versions of each, and reasons for choosing one form or another. Closed cell headphones like the Ultrasone Pro 750 review pdf ) for instance are not by default better than in-ear (canal) phones like the very decent Etymotic 6i , or open phones like the Sennheiser HD580 . Hi Impedance headphones like AKGs (600 Ohms) are not always better than low impedance phones (Ultrasones at 75 Ohms). They do have different qualities tho. What to do? try great versions of each kind. Understand the pros and cons of any form and make your decision.
The point is, good headphones (usually in the 75£ plus zone, tho price is not always indicative) will let you hear MORE of the audio signal coming from your system.
Headroom has a list of their 10 top fave headphones of various stripes. I don't agree with all their findings, but it's a great way to get a sense of the ranges of types. With these definitions in hand, why not hit an audio shop and head for the pricier models (just as a first pass indicator) and experience the difference between say the Apple default ear buds, and some really good cans - just so you can gage the degree of difference - and if that difference is meaningful to you.
Improvement Three: Plugging them In - to what?
When you try different kinds of headphones, make sure you have an appropriate source driving them: an ipod on its own will not show off a 300ohm headphone like Senheisser HD600's - it just doesn't have the power to drive these things, as explained very well at Dan's Data. A 600ohm AKG will struggle with the ipod cranked to full. An ipod will be adequate for canal phones: they're low impedance devices. A good audio shop will make sure you're hooked up to an appropriate source to drive the phones you try. But don't think the fact that an ipod can't easily drive hi impedance phones means you can't use them with your ipods - we'll come back to that in just a moment. in the meantime...
Let's assume you've picked something you enjoy in the headphone space. Let's also assume you have an ok stereo - or at least an ok cd player (one that has a digital out of some kind will come in handy later in this discussion) but it doesn't have a headphone jack (most stereo components increasingly do NOT come with headphone out jacks) or you do want to use those high impedance phones with your ipod or your computer. What to do?
Enter the headphone amp.
A headphone amp is a dedicated box (read: with its own power supply) that amplifies the music signal from whatever source, and sends it directly to its headphone jack. There are many kinds of headphone amps: some have tubes in them; some are
solid state, like UK's Musical Fidelity X-Can-v3 (fantastic review by Edwin Leong). Some are hybrids of solid state and tubes.
Some amps are built for living within a stereo system, like those just listed, but there's a whole breed of portable headphone amps, too, built to go with portable players. Some of them are designed to reuse candy/coughdrop tins as the casing! As Dan's Data says, every geek needs a tin with a light on it.
One of my faves in this space is made by Robert Gehrke in Germany, taking up the Amp in A Tin concept, but taking the circuit design further, cleaner ( see description ). So far Gehrke has been selling these fine designs on EBay for both US and UK/EU customers in your choice of penguin tin design (he also sells the caffeinated mints that come in the tins, too, at penguinenergy ). As said, the design fundamentally lets you drive higher impedance headphones on an ipod (or from a laptop). They can also have some nice effects for even very low impedance cans sold specifically for ipods and similar devices. They can help open up the bass, eliminate audio clipping down there, especially on less well encoded tracks. Mainly, you notice that you can drive the headphones louder while maintaining very good clarity, without the amp coloring what you're hearing.
Depending when you find this page, he may not have many on offer, since he's hard at work on a Next Level design that will be similar to the
Total BitHead amp , with USB in, excellent DAC (see below), crossfeed, and digital optical out (very hard to get in the UK/EU). Can hardly wait. But i'm getting ahead of myself. And just to mention one more portable (tho slightly larger) amp that has lead to incensed debate among those who care is the Ray Samuels Emmerline SR-71 ( 6moons review ; stereophile review ).
The main thing about a headphone amp, whether a stereo/stationary one, or a portable, is what it does for listening via headphones. Using a headphone amp means that a dedicated amplifier is handling the volume of the signal, and can, especially in the ipod case, do so more efficiently than the ipod - can drive more demanding loads than phones designed for portable players. easier drive is smoother sound. Now a lot of audio geeks can tell you why this is the case, suffice it to say, it really is.
You may wonder about sound. A good headphone amp will help the audio "breath" so that your high quality headphones can get all those nuances out of the audio that's in that stream but which a less effective amp mayn't be able to deliver. Again, this is something to try out at your favorite audio shop - maybe when you try out the headphones.
Bottom line: with excellent headphones and a good source to drive them, along with well-encoded tracks, you are now in a position to experience that audiophile's experience of "wow, i heard *new* things in that recording i thought i knew - that's stuff i've never heard before; it sounded like they were playing with new instruments, in a better room, right beside me. "
And you could easily stop there. But in case you were wondering if that's it, it's not. You can also do things to squeeze those 0's and 1's better so that you get even better sound. Enter the role of the DAC.
Making it Better - External DAC for the computer or home stereo (or yes, your ipod, too).dac
So you've got a good audio source, you have found the headphones you enjoy, you've found some way to plug them in, and now you'd like to go to the next level into your ears. We now circle back towards the data source. If it's digital, the DAC or digital audio convertor of either your computer or your cd player is the thing that turns the zeros and ones into audio signal. The circuits used to do that conversion do make a difference to the sound you hear. If you want to check this out, head to your favorite audio shop and ask them to set up an ok (100-200£) cd player, and have a listen on their sweet stereo system. Then ask them to hook up a dedicated DAC to their system using a good coax cable between the cd and the DAC. The Musical Fidelity X-DAC v3 is one well-regarded example of such a beast. On the somewhat portable side, there's the mainly USA-only Headroom Micro DAC . On the USB silly money side, there's The Brick . There's also chord electronics DAC 64 (review). Now listen to that set up. Take in your headphones and listen to that cd player with and without the external DAC. See what you think. Take in your own cd player for the comparison - that will show you, too, how to get better value out of your current cd player, using it as a transport only. Hell, take in your computer or laptop if it has an optical out, and do this comparison!
Why should you care about an external DAC? your CD player has a DAC as does your computer anyway! Yes it does, but as with anything, there's more than one way to skin a dac. Different quality parts make a difference. One issue addressed in translating zeros and ones into analog audio signal is "jitter" ( see this 1990 article for a clear discussion of info on a cd, how it's pulled off, and the jitter effect on the waveforms that make sound ; or here's a less intrigued discussion of what happens inside a cd player to create jitter ) - jitter is about timing of the read of the signal on a disc. If the timing is a wee bit out for whatever reason, it effects the sound. Timing of what? when a sample of the music represented by those zeros and ones gets played. Imagine a fence with pickets. The pickets get nailed against a fence rail at exactly the same distance apart. Now imagine someone marked the rail where each picket is supposed to go, and occaisionally gets bumped when measuring so the pencil mark gets pushed ahead. The spacing of the pickets is no longer regular. Rather than being regularly spaced, some are further apart; some a bunched up. The visual effect is that the pattern of the pickets gets changed. That's what can happen with digital audio: samples of sound are supposed to be exactly and regularly spaced. a clock is used to synch the samples up so that they'll be regularly spaced, like the pickets. Various things can happen, however, that the clock gets slightly out of synch (and there's not just one clock involved). The result on the wave pattern of the music is like the picket fence: the pattern changes, and consequently so does the sound or fidelity of the music.
Most systems have robust measures in place to address jitter and keep timing errors to a minimum (some are better than others). So, after timing, the next part of the process is translating the zero's and one's into electrical pulses to create the sound. There are different qualities of digital audio converters that do different things to make the 16bit audio of a cd sound richer, fuller. Remember that digital audio is composed by taking samples of the frequencies in an audio stream - it's not continuous like analog recordings. So, even though it is taking samples very rapidly within very short periods, there are still gaps between those samples. The size of the sample also effects how much information it can hold about that sample. The CD is 16 bit. Interestingly, most high level recording systems record in 20 or 24 bit, and audio is downsampled to fit the CD format.
Just to put 16 vs 24 bit audio in perspective, on a computer screen, once upon a time they were only black and white (or orange and black, or black and green...) That was what two bit color could do. Early color monitors were 8bit, giving 256 (2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2) colors. 16bit color came next, giving thousands of colors. The difference between 8 bit and 16 bit color can be seen when looking at color gradients (one color fading into another): the more bits, the smoother, and less noticeable the transitions from one color to another. Now, 24bit color (millions of colors) is common. The transitions are even more seamless. Same in audio: the higher the sample depth, the richer the information about the audio that can be stored in that sample. So, some of the newest DACs take that 16bit audio from a CD and up-sample it to 24bit sample depth and 192 khz samples a second - calculating/simulating richer information both in the sample and filling in the holes between the samples. Indeed, upsampling can help address jitter errors introduced by the sampling process itself.
It wouldn't be fair to say that there isn't debate in the engineering vs audio community about the role of such technologies , whether up sampling or oversampling in dealing with audio signals. But no matter what the magic is in the box, the only thing that matters is whether or not you hear a richer audio presence: does it sound like the musicians you love are playing better? suddenly have even nicer instruments? If you can't hear a difference, there isn't much point. I tried a DAC recently that didn't seem to sound any better hooked into the CD player than without it. I was using the CD players optical out. Someone suggested i try the coax out from the cd. WOW! that made a difference. The optical out (toslink) on the player was shite. Glad there was the coax. Suddenly a cheap-ish cd player was competing with players hundreds of pounds more expensive than it.
DACs aren't just for CD players - they can be applied to any digital audio source that has a digital output (toslink or coax). If you have iTunes coming out of a mac with a digital audio out (new macs, including the laptops, do; g5's also have optical out), you can feed that optical out right into something like the X-DAC. Indeed, because of the way the x-dac works, you can hook up a toslink from your computer (monster makes the appropriate cable as part of the airport express cable pack) into the optical port on the x-dac, and have a coax connection going from the cd to the dac as well. The box detects which machine is on and locks onto that source. Magic. But again, hear it for yourself (or read the pdfs of copious reviews but much better to hear it).
Review: putting it all together.
Audio recordings played through really good stereo equipment does make a difference to the audio experience. It improves the audio experience on so many levels - whether it's the clarity of bass as it becomes distinct notes rather than a low thump, or the real silence of the spaces between notes, or the presence of the scratching of bow against string.
Hi Fi audio experience is possible in the headphone space at a fraction of the cost it would take to create a similar stereo system. There are four parts to consider, particularly for the ipod/computer based source to move closer to music nirvana.
And yes sure you don't NEED any of this to be moved by music (just like a photographer doesn't need the most expensive digital camera on the planet to take great pictures) . Some of my best memories of music have been of cheap nearly worn cassettes played during long roadtrips on gnarly car stereos with one speaker bust, BUT it can be emotionally very satisfying as well, moving even, to really hear something the way some better gear can bring out that experience.
Indeed, being able to hear a recording on good gear can make you appreciate stuff you may otherwise have brushed aside. This has certainly been the case for me with brahms string sextets . I'd passed it over. even said "yuck" and then i accidently heard it with a headphone amp plugged into the cd player and it was a revelation. It's since become a favorite recording.
So, yes, two main things, then two bonus bits:
(1) decently encoded data - whether AAC 128 Variable Bit Rate, or, my preference, Apple Lossless
(2) great headphones - closed, open, canal; high or low impedance
(3) a good source to drive and open up whatever cans you're using - headphone amp!
(4) and finally, if you're getting really into this, a dedicated DAC to squeeze the most from your digital source.
Lest you think this is the end, it's not: there's external power supplies to drive the devices better; there's the quality of the cables connecting the bits (don't let an engineer tell you cable is cable: it's not - you can hear the difference. It doesn't mean the most expensive stuff is the best, but you can hear the differences between cables - try a blindfold test with different ones. For example, with an x-can v3 hooked up directly to your fave store's cd player, and your headphones on, ask to hook up that cd player to an x-dac using, for instance, UK made
Chord Electronic 's CoDac cable then try the same set up with their prodac cable - just don't let them tell you which is which, and see what you think. And that's not all: there are a myriad of aftermarket headphone cable upgrades that tune the sound of the headphones themselves for AKG and Sennheissers - see groups like Cardas or Stefan Audio Art for examples).
But before getting super intrigued about the path towards perpetual upg