Dunbar’s Number, Monkeyspheres and how to design for social

I usually begin with definitions to gain a common vocabulary. This article begins with two stories.

1. You have a ton of monkeys

You are a monkey pet owner. You have several monkeys. When you begin adopting monkeys you give them names and remember them by their attributes. As you begin to amass your monkey army, some of the monkeys do not interact with you that often and therefore begin to be second thought in your mind. The ones who interact with you the most are the closest to you. You recognize them from a distance, you know their names as well as you know what day it is. Those monkeys that are close to you, your intimate circle, are what we will call your “Monkeysphere.”

The psychology question is at what point will you start forgetting their names? When will you begin to start thinking of them as “the other monkeys” or “the monkeys that don’t come to me when its feeding time.” What’s happening is the monkeys are being established in your mind in 2 initial sets. You have a monkeysphere and an extended circle of monkeys. The extended monkeys, even though they are close, are more distant in your emotional response and interactions with them. The answer to the question, “When will you start forgetting their names?”, we have had several studies based on that exact question. We think we know the answer.

2. You are a prehistoric man that lives in a tribe

As a cave-person you understand that living and moving about the bountiful plains in a group is much safer. You are a member of a tribe for support and safety. In this tribe you also have your immediate family and close friends. You have daily interactions with your family and friends. That group we will call your intimate network.

The intimate network you have around you is a small subset of your tribe. You have daily close interactions with them. You might groom each other, talk about the day’s events, share food, protect them with your life if need be, care for them when they are sick. This group is small and tightly monitored. One of the reasons this group is small is that it is made up of people just like you in some manner or they are relatives, who you feel a connection with. What keeps them in your intimate network is the constant actions with them. You are always reminded of their presence and well-being. Much like the monkey pet owner, if you have constant interactions with them, the closer they get to your emotional well-being.

You also look for them as your own personal support network. You will ask for their opinions, affirmations, and look for guidance as well. You may borrow things from them knowing they will say yes, and that you will return them in good order. You take a less critical eye to what they say and they do likewise to you as well.

Your extended network are those in your tribe. You have interactions with them, but not necessarily daily. You conduct or attend ceremonies with them, you might support them from a distance by donating food to the group, and you may attend tribal council meetings to help shape or establish rules for all to follow. Your extended network is important to you, but they are not crucial. You may look at them with a slightly more critical eye than you do to your intimate network, but not like a stranger.

The interesting thing is that we believe there is a set number you can have in your intimate network and your extended network. That number is based on brain size and species. How big is your tribe and how big is your intimate network? We think we have a good idea of that answer as well because it is the same as the first story. The answer is 12 for intimate networks, and 150 for extended networks.

Dunbar’s Number

Dunbar’s number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person.^[1] Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar’s number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150.

Primatologists have noted that, due to their highly social nature, non-human primates have to maintain personal contact with the other members of their social group, usually through grooming. Such social groups function as protective cliques within the physical groups in which the primates live. The number of social group members a primate can track appears to be limited by the volume of the neocortex region of their brain. This suggests that there is a species-specific index of the social group size, computable from the species’ mean neocortex volume.

In a 1992 article, Dunbar used the correlation observed for non-human primates to predict a social group size for humans. Using a regression equation on data for 38 primate genera, Dunbar predicted a human “mean group size” of 148 (casually rounded to 150), a result he considered exploratory due to the large error measure (a 95% confidence interval of 100 to 230). [via Wikipedia]

This is important because using this theory, we understand that there will only be about 12 very intimate people in someone’s network and about 150 total. When someone says “How many friends do you think our customers will have?” that is a great starting point.

If this is true, why do people have thousands of facebook friends and have hundreds of people they consider “great friends”? What we see through research is that people have augmented their extended network because in modern civilization people have gotten more secluded. Yes, more secluded through technology. When you wake up you don’t have to interact with anyone if you don’t want to. The sizes of communities have gotten smaller and more niche. We do not have to interact with people like we used to. You probably feel close to some online friend than you do to your neighbor that lives 4 houses down. This is the crux of modern society. We have gotten more lonely.

To maintain our extended network, because we find that people really do need an extended network, we use other avenues to look for affirmation and guidance. These can take the form of online groups, message boards, or another place that you may frequent, such as a grocery store. You may go to the gym to work out and then afterwards sit and talk to the people that work their or others that work out there, because you show similar interests as them, and therefore consider them a part of your extended network. This is the same reason people gossip about celebrities with each other.You and I don’t know any celebrities, but it is a way for us to have a common ground to discuss something. Therefore we reaffirm our morality and our views based on them with each other. Through the use of this dialog we struggle to maintain our values, our principles, and our extended network.

What does this mean to design?

Well, the full meaning of this to design is well beyond the scope of this article, but it can be boiled down to a few things. First we know that most people will have a very close circle, a monkeysphere, of about 12 people. That will be a group comprised mainly of your close friends and family. We also know that most people will have an extended network of about 150 people. Using those two numbers you will have a great start at designing the features and functions of a social network. You can limit features and functions based on those numbers to save on development and iterations. We know that you will not need 50 functions for 500 people, but you may need 50 functions for about a dozen. Of the next set, you will not need 25 functions for 500 people, but you may need them for 150 or so.

When you design for a social experience always keep in mind ‘what is their monkeysphere?’ and ‘where will this play a part in it.’ Most social designers fail to realize this and try to design a small amount of functions for everyone, thereby leaving out the intimate network and leaving user’s wanting more.

This is just a light skimming of the theory and I hope it has motivated you to go out and read more on it.

OCGM (pronounced Occam['s Razor]) is the replacement for WIMP

WIMP is the current acronym for the Windows User Experience. It stands for Windows Icons Menus Pointing Devices.

In human–computer interaction, WIMP stands for “window, icon, menu, pointing device“, denoting a style of interaction using these elements. It was coined by Merzouga Wilberts in 1980.^[1] Although its usage has fallen out of favor, it is often used as an approximate synonym of “GUI“. WIMP interaction was developed at Xerox PARC (see Xerox Alto, developed in 1973) and “popularized by the Macintosh computer in 1984″, where the concepts of the “menu bar” and extended window management were added. [2] [via Wikepedia]

The WIMP interface is a slow dying breed as our demands on user experience and the demands of user’s keep inflating. It’s time to start thinking in a new direction. A direction that sheds many of the harnesses of the old acronym and begins to explain the building blocks of the future. It will be simple, concise, and cover all of the bases we need. There is no need to rely on pointing devices, menus, or windows anymore. It’s time to let the experience be the interface, and the user to be in total control. The interface will begin to blend in with the experience and the experience will be the interface.

I have spent several months thinking about this and trying to solidify something presentable. This is the fruit of my labor. I present to you:

This acronym is short, concise, and to the point. It contains all the elements the modern designer will ever need. In discussing this acronym with someone yesterday, he asked “Why do you separate out manipulations and gestures?” This is a good question and lies at the very core of modern design. These are the two basic interactions needed for a NUI, Touch, or even a Windows based system. The first is easy, intuitive, usually engulfed in a metaphor of some sense. The second is complex, learned, non-physical, and super-natural. The understanding of these two types of interactions are core to designing something for the modern world.

We have objects, which can be grouped into containers. We have manipulations, which can be contained inside of a gesture. The simplicity is liberating.

By a lucky coincidence, the acronym also bears very similar pronunciation and essence to Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer tends to be the right one.

Occam’s razor (or Ockham’s razor^[1]), entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, is the principle that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one. The principle is attributed to 14th-century English logician, theologian and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. Occam’s razor may be alternatively phrased as pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate (“plurality should not be posited without necessity”).[2] [via Wikepedia]

I hope you love this acronym as much as I do. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment.

Critical thinking on Progress Indicating Traffic Lights and a challenge to you

A few days ago The Red Dot Design Award Winners were announced. This is always such a great competition because the participants are so varied and different. The sky is the limit, its wonderful! This year there were 12,000 entries from 60 countries. Of the winners, one entry has gained some traction. The particular entry was progress indicating traffic lights.

Progress Indicator Lights

I like this design! Anyone who knows me, knows that “Wait UI” (ex.- Press and Hold) is the bane of my existence [constant source of irritation]. Making the user wait for any period of time is a bad experience. We should challenge designers to come up with things that are not Wait UI. On the other hand, there are examples like this, where waiting ISthe UI. The users have to wait, now its time to make it more intuitive. Let’s break this down into the psychology of the problem and the Mechanical part of the problem.

Occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time or Queuing Psychology 101 (the UX)

“…a day full of waiting, of unsatisfied desire for change, will seem a small eternity.” —William James, 1891

MIT’s Engineering Systems Division has an ace in the hole, so to speak, when talking about Queuing Psychology. Dr. Larson or affectionately referred to as “Dr. Queue” has been studying the effects of queuing for more than twenty years. The team over at ESD came up with a few things that were very interesting and solved a few pain points for Disney and theme parks in general. If you have ever been to Disney and went on any of the rides, the lines are insane. The lines can be anywhere between 15 minutes to 2 hours per ride. The challenge was to find a way to make this necessary evil more fun. They had a few great ideas that involved a wonderful use for a “touch wall” and other short interactive games.

Short interactive games while waiting in line at Disney

Progress indicating lights have existed for 100 years (history)

When researching a design, we have to lean on what Bill Buxton always talks about in “new” designs. There rarely are any! They are just recirculations of old designs that we re-purpose for our current needs. This design is no exception. Marshalite Traffic Signals have been around in Australia since 1936 and still exist in a few places.

Marshalite - an analog version!

These lights already exist in the world, so what research can we gather? (current UX research)

So let’s look around and try to find some pain points for the current design. The progress indicator lights already exist in a few countries and obviously people are going to have some thoughts on them. In my very informal search and reading to look at what people think about them now, I found a few quotes.

They already have traffic lights and padestrian crossings in Manila with timers on them. As far as I can tell they don’t really help there.

… Delhi/Mumbai. … the last 5 seconds before the light turns green resemble the start of a NASCAR race. -both via Neatorama

So the reference here is that they also resemble Racing Trees and therefore will push the user to anticipate the light and may cause accidents. This is a problem that we should be aware of.

Racing Tree Lights

The first thing that comes to mind after seeing what we have seen so far, is that one solution will not solve all the problems. We are going to need a way for it to be configured at installation. We need to let the city engineers do the final stage of the design so they can customize it to fit their needs.

Why do we need to do this? (the greater design tenet with UX in mind)

The problem is that gasoline is getting more expensive and more scarce. If we continue how we are now, we will destroy the environment around us. We need to think green. You should always think low impact in your design solutions because it means they are less expensive in the long run. The more the design saves the company, the more apt they are at instituting it. So let’s look around at some of the current research on Hybrids and gasoline.

Question: Is it better to turn your car off for a 30 second stop or to leave it running?

Answer: Turn it off and it saves gas and its more wear and tear on your vehicle (starter, crank shaft, etc). Leave it on burns more gas and its easier on your vehicle.  –(1995) paraphrased from The Car Guys.

How does that compare to what the average is?

How long does the average American spend waiting at a red light?

Answer: 3min. and 18sec. via - WikiAnswers

There seems to be a gap. What about current technology with Hybrids?

Comparison of what Hybrids do

So it seems that all manners of Hybrids shut their engines off at stop lights.

Given all that we have learned, what changes would we make? (UX Design)

It seems that really, the only glaring thing we need to take into account is the final 10 seconds. When users would start to rev their engines and get ready for the green light. This revving would then eliminate any of the benefits of the engines being shut off in the first place. The other piece we need to keep in mind is have it configurable at time of installation. This would be very helpful for tuning and further refinement as the time of install progresses.

Here is the current design that won the competition.

Design Winner

and here is a blank slate for you to test out your designs.

Blank Traffic Light

You can download this Illustrator CS4 file here. If you happen to be using another type of program, I also uploaded the EPS file, and you can get it here. I created the outer circle in Live Paint, so all you need to do is grab the paint bucket tool and drop whatever color you want in there.

Let’s see your designs! Send me your concoctions and I’ll post them here. Also write a bit about your rationale and reasoning for designing it your way.

The fake Apple gestural movies, a critique by request

I’m subscribed to just about every RSS that contains the words NUI or Multi-Touch in the title. One of the better one’s is http://theclevermonkey.blogspot.com. He made a post the other day about how impressed he was with a set of videos on youtube of a mockup from an anonymous person based on what they thought Apple’s new tablet will consist of interaction-wise. It was titled “Move Over Jonathan Ive, Hear comes Jon Doe”. That grabbed my attention.

Jonathan Ives is one of the best designers working today. I think he has great talent and he got some wonderful opportunities that really allowed him to flourish. He is great, but the only reason he is great is because he has made several errors. Big errors, as we all do in our careers. Bill Buxton was talking to me about this very thing a few days ago. Great artists make errors, learn from them, and move on. Jonathan has made his share of errors, as well as his share of wins. So, no question about Jonathan’s skills, but who is this John Doe?

I made an offhand comment on theclevermonkey about how unimpressed with the gesture language that was demonstrated in the videos. He replied that I should write a constructive and helpful post to point out a few things. So here we are.

The first video in the series:

So, I will breeze over a few of the main concepts that I feel the person missed in their mockup. I only watched 2 of the videos, and will only comment on one, but here is what I gathered from it.

• In watching the gestures I see confusion between single tap and double tap. At around 4 seconds he does a single tap to change its state after he used single tap to get it into the state? Then does another double tap to zoom out? I’m not quite sure I understand the metaphor around each of the taps. If single tap is select, then how can it also be activate and unzoom/state change.  It seems here that the user is going through a pre-determined path of usability rather than real motions.
• At around 10 seconds after the OnScreenKeyboard use, he does a single tap all the way across the screen on a very small hit target. This seems problematic and does not obey Fitt’s Law.

Fitts’s law (often cited as Fitts’ law) is a model of human movement in human-computer interaction and ergonomics which predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the distance to and the size of the target. Fitts’s law is used to model the act of pointing, either by physically touching an object with a hand or finger, or virtually, by pointing to an object on a computer display using a pointing device). It was proposed by Paul Fitts in 1954.

• The closing of the keyboard should be thought about in a broader term. Why have the button so small? Why have the button on the other side of the screen? Why not put buttons on both sides to accommodate ambidextrous bi-manual input. Why not change its color slightly to ease speed of use? A very thin row of black buttons is not conducive to a natural interface.
• at 17 seconds he uses double tap twice. Once to do an “execute” on the video clip, and then again on the File Explorer window to perform a maximize/full screen. Unless in this operation if you “execute” the File Explorer that also goes into a Slideshow mode? I’m hazy on this.
• at 20 seconds he does a double tap on an image in the slideshow and that propels him into a scatterview experience? Maybe that is a Mac thing that I am unaware of, but if he just performed an “execute” on the icon, why does it go into scatterview?
• at 22 seconds he uses two-fingers to draw a marquee around items which also produces a context menu. If you had a context menu pop up everytime you selected a group it would not be a good experience. Menus need to be deliberately activated, not activated as a secondary action. There would be emails sent. :)
• at 27 seconds he uses two-fingers to then move the carousel around? Why has movement now shifted chords? Two-fingers were just used to draw a marquee and do a group select, and now they are used for movement? This is a confused metaphor and not consistent.

Thats pretty much everything in the first video besides the simple movements with single touch. To really be critical I would also say that using single touch for movement on a background is a little easy don’t you think? Certain things need to be forgivable, the background being one of them.

My main critique over the set is that multi-touch means just that, Multi-Touch. That means more than just two fingers side by side, or even three fingers next to each other. It means thinking about systems in a whole new way. What about offhand manipulation? What about modifiers? Think about occlusion and ease of use. If you are playing a game do you really want to have 3 fingers on the screen to run? then keep them on the screen the whole time? As the author noted in the last movie he had doubts.

To be more helpful and instructive I’ll throw out a few ideas. Why not use the offhand as movement and the primary hand as action? So, with your left hand you place down a finger and hold it outside of the quick menu area, this establishes the center of movement, now with any other touch in a direction near your initial touch you are running. This leaves your other hand free to perform actions that might be needed. Now with another tap with your left hand your running is now ‘frozen’ forward so you can remove your hand. Your character is now running in a direction that you chose without much primary attention. Want to change directions? Use two-fingers and slide. Want to stop running? Two-fingers and slide down. Side-step? You get the idea. Using the initial two taps to set motion then two fingers at the same time to give more detailed instructions eases the attention you would need to give it. Think how fast you could do that?

That ends the lesson for tonight. Overall, great video. I was very impressed with the videos themselves actually. High quality for a mock-up. Now hopefully you understand my thoughts when I see a lot of passion in this effort, but not quite enough expertise. The thing is …. expertise can be learned. Passion cannot. I hope he continues down this path, we could always use more passionate designers out here.