While I’ve always considered publishing my thoughts on human-computer interaction, I’ve had reservations about starting a blog. The balance has finally tipped in favor of publishing, and here’s why.
First of all, I’m starting a software company. One of the reasons some start-ups fail is due to lack of marketing. I could be developing the coolest software in the world, but that software is worthless to me unless people know about it. As it turns out, one of the easiest ways to get the word out is through blogging. Chris Campbell of Particletree makes the argument that blogging is the cheapest and perhaps most effective way to gain mind-share on the web. Therefore it’s no surprise that he has posted an argument for small-business blogging on his company’s blog.
The company I’m starting is extremely focused on the importance of intuitive interfaces to application development, and I’ve had a number of conversations with people about human-computer interaction in its many forms. Very few people in the technology industry are interested in this particular field, and even within the field fewer still are driven by an obsessive sense of perfectionism. We have seen only incremental improvements in usability since the introduction of the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model of graphical interface. It is therefore extremely important that those people working in the field engage in discourse to push each other along. With more people thinking about and discussing human-computer interaction, we have more of a chance to improve the HCI landscape.
Since cheap, high-volume publishing is possible on the Web, everybody has a voice. That doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody has something to say. I used to have a fatalistic view of the signal-to-noise ratio, but now I believe that the clear, insightful voices are capable of cutting through the din. Credibility is earned, and the good bloggers develop a reputation for their quality. As a consequence, I believe those voices with nothing to contribute will fade into the background. Perhaps the casual nature of blogging is partly to blame for the vapidity of most blogs. The author William Gibson theorized that the frequent-update culture encourages writers to post too soon. Traditional writing is a process of constant revision, while the format of a blog encourages informal, stream-of-consciousness writing. Bloggers end up publishing an article before it’s fully thought out, and for that reason, the writing doesn’t take flight. The bloggers I respect work on articles for weeks before posting, thoroughly revising and polishing. I expect that my posts, too, will be more infrequent than on most blogs — I prefer quality over quantity.
The conversation between a writer and the community of readers that is afforded by blogging is significant, but the importance of a conversation between writers is often overlooked. Bloggers with thoughtful opinions on human-computer interaction, whether they are in the academic world or in industry should use the medium as a way to share ideas and to challenge each other into pushing the field forward. Therefore, this blog is intended to be one part of a larger discussion, and in the end the discourse is more important than the individual contributors.