As users of
computers and other ICT-devices, we are not a constant, we change our focus,
mood, mode all the time. Software development is slowly moving toward Multi-ID
interfaces, a major trend for the coming years. The back-end of our software
has developed enormously in last decades, but the door to the user remained
basically the same with a window/desktop metaphor until recently, when we went
for the horizontal with touch screen literally tilting the whole interface
approach. The vertical, hierarchical approach has to make space for the peer
level horizontal which effects not only the design of computers and the
interface, but less obviously also the use and integration of computers in
society, companies and education. The computer has finally been domesticated.
Let the pro-touch folks cheer! Hail Jobs, the great liberator!
The horizontal and BYOD trend has opened the doors for data-access at all
times, all levels, and everywhere, as well as allowing the little guys to be an
equal to anyone when they sit around this new sign of true membership, the flat
shield with the iconic and hypnotic apple.
Maybe too early, as a peer-level model is nice for social networks, but has
some limitations in organizations. We as humans still have enough herd instinct
to like to have a leader, a hierarchy that allows us to follow.
Equality is
great, but the great social experiments of the last century didn't work out so
well.
The touch interface
directions clear, but will we all have a
touch-screen before us on our desks too. Will this bring new ergonomic problems,
the reaching-shoulder syndrome maybe? There lies a business opportunity for the
manufacturers of screens, of course depending on how efficient touch screen can
prove to be for traditional desktop work. Windows 8 is a step in this
direction, though undoubtedly, it will
take years before a truly efficient bridge between the vertical and the
horizontal use modalities has been found.
The real
question for software developers is not how diversified and adaptable, how
secure and fraud proof we make the access door to whatever we store or hide in
the data-mountains and mines of internet, cloud and centralized computing, but
how to adapt it to the user and his or her multiplicity, different identities
we have using all those ICT devices. We are not a single identity that can be
profiled and catered for and merged into all applications. Using one Microsoft
Passport identity for all services sounds great and not only Microsoft but also
Google try to make you the one, identifiable (and credit card chargeable) and
IP-traceable person. However, in practical life and when using our PC or
smartphones, we are shifting identities and even personalities all the time,
from work mode to family mode, from consumer to creator, from professional to
sheepish to sexual. The dynamic complexity of the human psyche and its clearly non-digital,
irrational, yet creative and inspiring inclinations is, as yet, not represented
in the human-computer interface. One could, alas, also claim it's not truly
understood at all levels. Since Plato's two horses (Phaedrus) we progressed to
Jung's four modes of behaving, Myers-Briggs and Enneagram typologies, tinkering
a bit with brain-scans to identify the physical modalities of mind, but failing
to understand why we have trouble concentrating on a single task more than
seconds at a time.
When looking at what people want and need while relating that to the more
recent developments like the cloud, mobility everywhere, big data and social
computing, we see some bridges and catering for user needs, but mostly
technology push. Cloud services didn't arrive because we want our data
elsewhere, but because the bandwidth, virtualization and internet access are
there. For social computing one could state that this was a natural
development; that the unexpected popularity of sms-and
texting was market-driven; and that the customer and user were at the basis of
the social networks. Nice, democracy in
cyberspace! But how fast have we handed over our autonomy and the power to
decide our identity and left it to the walled gardens of the likes of Facebook
and Google? It feels like it's time to take back that autonomy. Perhaps more
advanced multi-identity software could offer a way to get there?
Any real
progress in software effectiveness must come from a better understanding of the
mind-machine interface. The present shift from vertical to horizontal computing
via touch interfaces and the use of apps to isolate activity sets offers a good
opportunity to come up with new approaches here. We are at a threshold, the old
Disc Operating System (DOS) is about to die, time to analyse the hurdles in
actual usage. The growing need to honour our multiple identities on the
smartphone in our pockets (an on the desktop), like simply switching between
business and private mode, if well understood, opens a whole vista of software
development.
We need new interfaces
since the amount of data, number of services and storage options has become a
digital swamp. The enormous choices we have in how and what we do with all this
cyberspace content and freedom is just too much. This is not a technical question,
but a human question. We have to deal with stimulation overload if we are not
to drown in the sea of content or the mountains of data available. The cloud,
mobility, virtualization, malware, saas and search
engines have certainly changed the way we use our computers, on the desktop, as
a client to servers and services and as a mobile device. We are even allowed to
somewhat personalize our user interface which we (mostly without an opt-out)
grant permission services like Google to do that for us. Their algorithms scan
usage patterns and feed us what correlates best with the perceived identity.
In many cases that works fine, offering ads and buttons of products and
services that we might like to get search results preselected by the machine,
helpful to a certain extent. The powers of the world, the banks, the police,
the crime business, the secret services, the medical and insurance complexes
also use these profiling techniques, with good and bad intentions and effects.
Digital identity gets framed, mostly in unknown ways and in databanks we cannot
access. One day we discover our total dependence, defined by those numbers in a
computer. This representation however, does not honor
who we really are. Most of the time these are static or slowly changing models
of what this or that psychologist, statistician, government or search engine
distils from what they can trace. Profiling, one of the real dangers of
automated personality and usage analysis, has naturally become a science and
business in itself.
It is now
possible to look at pictures, movies and pinpoint character traits and
potential behaviour, which is used in commercial applications, for security and
by the government. I fear that, for many of us, the secret services of this
world (and why not the credit assessment organizations and insurers) have
already profiles made up. We are not aware of them and cannot change them if
incorrect, but they are used for visa issuing, security checks etc. With these
profiling techniques one goes far beyond simple models using all kinds of
correspondences and psychological relationships, even esoteric ones like
astrology. If Sagittarian people like Volvo cars more than BMW's, why waste
advertising money pushing the wrong ads on them. Our birth dates are nearly
public domain anyway. Combinations with zip-code and gender provide an
interesting profile. Said profiles don't need to be correct, as long as they
yield average profitable results. Services like Google are willing to go pretty
deep in analyzing surfing habits, visiting patterns to come up with and
sell user profiles. However these analyses remain more or less stable ,
changing only gradually as usage changes.
In my view these approaches are effective BUT limited. They usually assume
we have only one constant identity, from which they slice off just a few bits.
In the eyes of Google (or the software they use ) one can be totally different
from the identity held by the tax-authorities, the judicial system. In fact,
our representation in a myriad of databanks has many different and differently
quantified selves, each covering limited aspects of what we really are or are
projected to be.
The problem remains that the "profiled" identities are limited by the
technology used, the information available to them, as well as the fact that we
are not always the same or at least act or react the same. We can be in various
modes: professional, family, recreation. In fact, we change mood and modes more
often than clothes. Though unsanctioned, personal calls at work or privately
interesting websites do happen, human nature is to shift attention and focus.
And even with say work mode, there are activity, emotional and think
modalities, even being in the different psychological sub-personalities because
of circumstances or intent. In different modes we need different approaches,
interfaces, routinely access different datasets, in fact we work from different
mindsets with different characteristics, moods, levels of consciousness all the
time.
The present
software, certainly at the operating system and basic operations level and in
the user interface, offers scant or no possibilities to deal with this. New
apps do help, they offer personalised options to address problems or access
software, but are still limited in offering true multi-ID environments. We can
somewhat personalize our user interface, but changing the layout of our screen icons because we are in a
different mode is certainly not done by just clicking on one button or because
a sensor picks up a change in skin conductivity or frontal lobe activity in the
brain.
Software engineers tend
to see users as more or less constant, capable of choosing the software
and services necessary. In fact, they see them with singular identities[, one
personality, always the same] DELETE. Security profiling, actual behavior of people in crowds, already recognizes this, but
your smartphone, tablet or desktop software doesn't acknowledge one identity.
Here lies the great opportunity for software that acknowledges multiple aspects
to individuals by offering a different user interface allowing easy shifting
between them.
An easy trajectory? Actually, users already have found all kinds of tricks and
methods to deal with this environment while the developers pick up on
this trend. Many people have two mobiles phones, so that one can switch between
business and private with each billed separately. The multitude of picture,
video and audio content in mobile devices these days is usually also related
to different identities. Many would like to classify, order, browse and access
according to their identity-mode and activity of the moment, only accessing
part of their whole databank. In the basic smartphone operation this is not
easy. There is but one Gallery, with thousands of content items. Apps like VisR do cater for this. One can sort, select and classify
pictures in different groups, allowing easy browsing and separating into groups
(event related) of picture material.
> If one sees applications and content (on-device or in the cloud) as a
database with multi-identity access and usage modalities, what is needed is a
simple and universal access software mechanism that bring those applications
and data to the front door (on screen, as icons or in cache) of the user. In
As the operating systems don't really provide space for this kind of multi-identity
(multi-id) or multiple persona (persona in Greek means mask) interface, an
app or application layer may be needed. Modern touch screen devices can switch
via simple icons or swipes to another mode. This offers relatively simple
mechanism to change the interface compliant with the usage mode, but also to
cater for different moods and mindstates.
Isn't it surprising that
this need has not been widely addressed by the developers? Perhaps because
limited psychological insight and as one hardly knows how our psyche works,
switching between activity or mood modalities or subpersonalities
is observed but not really explained.
The reason why the user
is seen as a constant might have to do with the general idea that we know who
we are, that our ego is our self, that I am who I am. We like to see ourselves
as whole and one, ignoring that we are as some say, a bunch of ego’s. The
multi-ID software idea might seem unacceptable to the user at first as it feels
like one has a split personality. Having more "personalities" or
modalities of behaviour is usually seen as psychotic or pathological.
Therefore, in order to fully accept and appropriately develop a multi-identity
interface with more advanced differentiation and depth maybe we have to
get some better understanding of our psyche and how it functions.
What identity are we talking about? We have a limited self-image, other see us
in their perspective, there is a theoretical objective self image as well as
many cyberselves. Which one offers the best route to
design an effective identity gateway in the given situation? Apart from what
the profiling algorithms of all the search engines or databases yield in
information and some kind of identity appraisal or qualification, what is
needed is some better understanding of how our psyche works, what identity
models there are and what needs we want to satisfy.
Who do we think we are?
Who are we inside (even to the level of what can be called soul or inner child)
and in our outward behaviour or ego-mask(s), and should software differentiate
not only between activity modes like home or work, but also address the
multiple psychological (sub)identities and in what way? Should it be just nice
and adapted, or is some critical stimulation or challenge necessary? Many
questions, and this has to do with definitions of our selves or our I, our ego.
Psychology and philosophy and these days neurologists have tried to come up
with clear answers, but apart from many books, religions, therapies and half
baked "science" we know very little. I never found a consistent and
logical model of how I myself function, how to explain my different moods and
modes so I developed some hypothetical explanations (see http://www.lucsala.nl/psyche.htm)
to at least understand a bit more how I function, but it's clear that we need
better understanding of how we operate.
There are endless theories about how personalities and character traits are
formed, but none really explains clearly why and how we behave the way we do
and what we really want or need. The pyramid of needs of Maslow is one way to
look at our needs, but is too hierarchical and not very specific as for what
self actualization means in relation to trends like social networks and the
externalization of our identity. His pyramid does help to identify human needs,
especially the psychological ones, like security, love and esteem, but I have
seen no software or systems analysis methods that uses Maslow's insights to
create software that really covers those needs. Another way to analyze human
needs is what the enneagram tells us about different modes, basically showing
that people are different in their addiction to their most basic needs, like
the need to know, the need to be right, the striving for perfection or drama,
the need to act, to move, to conform, to bridge or to help. The mechanics of
the enneagram give some idea about how we move from one type of behaviour to
another, and is helpful in understanding how we change our behaviour and focus,
and could be used in a smart AI user interface but the system doesn't allow for
our shifting between complex subpersonality modes.
In order to develop
adequate multi-identity interfaces and software, we have to accept that nearly
all of us do have multiple behaviour modes because of how we developed, our
education and experiences. These modes or subpersonalities
may differ in many aspects, like intelligence, emotional quotient, social
capabilities, health, sexual preferences, sense-modes (see-hear-touch),
extroversion/introversion. To make it even more complex, in any given situation
there are different levels of intent, focus and consciousness.
Too many different
identities to handle on your smartphone? Of course, yet this is what we each
have to deal with in real life and in our relationships with the people around
us. Humans are pretty good at adapting to the different modes and identities of
themselves and others, we shift, adapt, flex or run. Then why does most
software assume a stable, dependable, and definitely not moody, user?
ICT has developed by
assuming that we can bypass our multi-ID by working with limited, single-ID
systems, but maybe it’s time to wake up from that digital pipe-dream. Time to
embrace our own multi-identity profiles, we can start identifying the more
general categories of usage and catering for what they require. One can easily
see categories like business and home, professional and recreational,
relational and organizational. And is it not feasible to have one button or
icon that would bring up all matters and data related to government matters,
taxes and such; another that would give access to all pictures, emails and
videos from our family as well as additional focus geared towards our holidays
and travels, etc.? Refining this to the level of individual preferences,
psychological profiles and our various identities is a further step which I see
as the great challenge and opportunity to make computers really useful by
becoming more personalized.
The new breed of
personal devices offers possibilities for interfaces that do a better job
at multi-identity interfaces, even as we start with simple modalities. In my
view, we need a broader perspective toward multi-identity user interfaces. I am
a multi-ID person, why isn’t my smartphone?
Luc Sala Nov 2012