Simon de la Rouviere

My sister is visiting for a week, and bought her 9-month old daughter with. She is the cutest thing: always somehow forcing a smile on my face. As they sit and play in the living room, they sometimes have kids shows playing on the TV. I can’t stomach it at all. My brain melts at the extreme obviousness and verbosity. Some sample dialogue:

Tjif: “Hey Tjaf! Look. We are outside! Look at the sun! It’s so nice and warm.”

Tjaf: “Yes Tjif! It’s so nice and sunny. Let’s go down to grass. It will be fun!”

Tjif jumps up and down.

Tjif: “Yes yes! The grass will be warm and it will be so sunny and fun!”

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You get my gist. My niece is enjoying it though: very much. It makes sense. It is simple. It is straightforward. It is presented to the kids in a way that is exciting and understandable. Lots of colours, weird creatures, and stimulating.

My mind wanders (as it does), and I’m thinking: This is so simple. Imagine what a child will have to understand and get grips of to become a 21st century citizen. Then this picture pops into my head:

(Photo courtesy Robert Scoble).

If you don’t know what it is. It is Google’s new “Google Glasses”.

This is insane. So. Much. Information. And. Things. To. Consider. The. Whole. Time.

As far as I understand this is supposed to “help” with information overload? I’m still undecided, as to me, the ease of access sometimes allows more to flood in, not helping the problem at all.

It is inevitable that technology will continue to aid us in new and exciting ways in the future. The problem is, is as it becomes more ubiquitous and embedded in our lives, the most important products will be ones that we intuitively grasp and understand. Adding more features to a product inevitably adds different value propositions, which can lead to diverging uses. This inevitably means that your product’s use isn’t as clear as one simple value proposition. “What am I supposed to do here?”

This is why I believe instagram is such a success (with the recent acquisition fresh in my mind). Share beautiful photos, fast. That’s it. It’s easy to understand. A user understands each step, and they are rewarded.

Look at kids shows. They are overly simplistic. It is so obvious what is happening. Take cues from Tjif and Tjaf. If you are going to want people to use what you make amidst all the other amazing things that occupy our minds, you are going to have to make it really simple and easy to understand.

It is after all fun in the sun.

So, in my previous I detailed my experience in interviewing for an internship at Facebook. After that I did some thinking and wondered what is the most I like in terms of web/tech. I knew I wasn’t quite capable of fulfilling a pure software engineering role. I am technically inclined enough, but not enough to compete with people who are only technically inclined. I’ve done development in various stacks, and I’ve coded a compiler. So, if I must, I’ll get there, but not fast enough to maintain a position as a pure software engineer.

I’ve always been fascinated by the human psyche (I used to read university psychology textbooks for fun in highschool), which is why I switched my major in 2nd year to Marketing + Socio-Informatics. This meant, I could still do programming, but also learn business skills and study the understanding of our information society’s interaction with people. I enjoyed it immensely.

Marketing felt like applied psychology. When you understand people, you know how to bring about that textbook “mutually satisfying exchange”. I could apply my love for psychology (understanding people) to a field where at that point I wouldn’t have to worry about where my eventual paycheck would come from (I still don’t quite know what psychologists do for a living). Socio-informatics also delved deeper into systems thinking, looking at the ways we solve the problems our society faces as the information and knowledge economy continue to thrive. My favourite part was learning about complexity/chaos theory and emergent behaviour.

What now?

Given what I studied, I tried looking for internships that fit that kind of niche. It is difficult, and I haven’t quite succeeded. Do I sign up as an IT analyst? Technology consumer behaviour expert? The problem is, I don’t have much to show in this area. The closest I can find is becoming a UX designer, focusing mainly on product and interaction design. Given my experience in founding two successful side-projects (Tweekly.fm and TwimeMachine) and failing at others (might do some posts about these at some stage), I’m coming closer to knowing what makes a product work (at least that is what I tell myself). My experience in marketing and socio-informatics also helps.

The problem is: coming full-circle, I don’t have much to show for visual design. I tried applying for Google’s user-experience design internship, but I didn’t make it as well. The only real example I have of visual design that was completely of my own making is vinyls.fm.

I’m learning, looking at designs and giving my critique and thoughts. Here are some posts related to UX I’ve written.

Thoughts on Google’s acquisition of Milk

UX Gripes: Hootsuite’s Refresh Button

2012: Year of the Designer

Why aren’t more sites using the left-side of the browser?

Why Spotify and Facebook are on the right track.

The future of interfaces: Why OS X Lion looks like iOS.

Should Wikipedia’s search be improved?

Should I use Google+?

Conclusion

I feel that my competitive advantage is my understanding of humans, and how information technology affects our lives. Just looking at my bedside reading, you will find books like Predictably Irrational, Connected, Crowdsourcing, The tipping point, Wikinomics and Critical Mass. I’m going from a macro point of view to learning myself more in-depth interaction design skills (protip: subscribe to ux.stackexchange.com’s newsletter) that will get me those internships I’d love to do.

Ultimately, it is difficult when applying for an internship at a large company to be a jack-of-all-trades. This sucks, especially when I want to go to learn. Maybe I should just stick to being in small startup mode for now? Before I apply for new internships, I’m going to take time to figuring out how to communicate the value I can provide.

Have you been in a similar position? I am sure there are people sitting at cross-sections of fields of interest wondering the same thing.

I like trying new things. And sometimes that is a problem, because I spread myself too thin. This year (2012), I started my Masters degree in Socio-Informatics at Stellenbosch University with MIH Media Lab. I’m working hard doing research on information overload on online social-networks.

One of the purposes of me deciding to do a master’s is the opportunity to go do an internship somewhere. I’m aiming high, and I want to travel.

So, after a friend (@marcog) recommended I apply for Facebook, I jumped at the opportunity: he got me a reference. The whole process was quite interesting. I got quite far into the process, but ‘fell’ out later in the interview process. I originally applied for the software engineering team, but switched half-way to the user interface (front-end dev) engineering team.

How it went:

The first step I did was a time programming puzzle (1h30) through interviewstreet. I did computer science in my first year, so my algorithmic skills wasn’t where I wanted it to be, so the week before the puzzle, I did some of the old Facebook puzzles, some Google codejam puzzles, and re-studied some basic algorithmics. The puzzle had me balancing weights, which was basically a problem of recursion and using trees. Luckily, I had practiced a similar problem and aced it (in python). Although there were some problems with interviewstreet, I got through to the next round.

At that point I realised I might not be up to scratch completely considering I switched from computer science major to marketing+socio-informatics in my 2nd year.

For the second step, I had my first interview with Lily from the UIX team. It was a basic interview, testing basic technical knowledge and cultural fit. I had a great chat and answered the basic javascript/css/html questions. That went well.

The third step was a longer UX challenge that involved some algorithmic thinking with a front-end problem. I built a calendar that had to deal with overlapping events. I eventually finished it, and sent it back. It was accepted.

The fourth step was a live coding interview. I spoke to a front-end dev on Facebook, while coding live, so that he can see how I think and how I solve the problems. The first problem was an algorithmic problem. With some thinking, I managed to code it up. The second problem was to flatten a javascript array with javascript. I whipped up some recursion and solved that as well.

Alas, although I thought I did well, I didn’t make the cut. They didn’t have a “good fit for a position available”. Either that’s the truth, or that’s a euphemism for “learn some more, come back next year”.

In the end, it was a great experience. I relearned some of my CS skills I did in my first year, sharpened my javascript skills and did some interviews.

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The problem is: I am technically inclined, but not enough. I am product/design inclined, but not enough. If I am going to want to do an internship, I’m going to have to show expertise in a narrower field, and that is what I am struggling with. The 2nd part will detail another opportunity I had and the problem with being a jack-of-all-trades.